


French Lilac

by SeahorseWithLaptop



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-06-03 08:18:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 50,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6603586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeahorseWithLaptop/pseuds/SeahorseWithLaptop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyungsoo is invited to an art viewing for an artist who's never been seen before, and finds him in the underground garage with a bottle of spray paint and a head stuffed full of colors.</p><p>Jongin has never told anybody his name, and that's the least of it, but Kyungsoo's voice is the most beautiful color he's ever seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Do you know what it would mean if we could just say that you were going to be there? We wouldn't even reveal anything about you, just that you were there, and everyone would be looking the whole time, like some kind of grand treasure hunt for the artist of our time." Pale yellow curled out of Yixing's mouth as he threw that stress ball into the air over and over again, higher and higher—the same one Kai had gotten him for his birthday last year.

"Why couldn't you just say I was there anyway? I don't have to go, you just have to say I'm there," replied Kai, biting his lip. The green his voice made when it mingled with Yixing's gave him a strange sense of calm, and he worried he'd be talked into attending this time. 

Yixing's ball flew higher. "That's not the point. You have plenty of money—you have plenty of everything. I think you'd really like—I think you'd like people, as long as it was in a controlled situation, like it is whenever you hang out with me or Chanyeol. I want you to see the reaction of people who see what you create, because however much you try to deny it, recognition feels good."

Kai rolled his tongue around in his mouth. "Is Chanyeol going?"

Yixing grinned. He could tell he was getting places. His position sprawled across Kai's white leather couch a moment ago had been defeated, but now he sat up a little bit and his eyes sparkled to reflect the evening light of the city. "Chanyeol and Sehun are going. Sehun goes to all your exhibitions, it's so cute. And we can keep it all our people."

Kai raised an eyebrow. "What's the point of an exhibition if I know everyone?"

"Well you won't know everyone. But there won't be any crazy fans or anything anywhere. We'll invite famous people. Chanyeol's counterpart—which you have yet to meet—knows half the celebrities in the country."

"It's not my fault I've never met him," grumbled Kai. "Chanyeol won't let me meet him. He says I'll steal him. They're not even dating, Chanyeol's not even gay! And first of all I have a boyfriend, and second of all, have you met me? How hard it is for me to, you know, really like someone? I—"

"I betcha he'll bring Baekhyun to the exhibition." Yixing was smiling mischievously now. "And you totally don't have a boyfriend. You do, however, have a wife, and that may be more of a problem. When's she getting back from Japan, anyway?"

Kai shrugged, running a finger across the dark granite kitchen countertop. If only the world could just leave him alone with a palate of paint, an ipod, and an easel, he'd be fine. "I don't know. No time soon. She'll probably be back by New Year's, if only to placate our parents."

Yixing nodded sagely. "You should call her."

Kai screwed up his nose, and Yixing laughed. "Okay, sorry for the bad suggestion. So you'll come, then? That was my goal for stopping by—that was it. I feel like I've won life or something."

"You're sure it wasn't to berate me for my love life?"

Yixing was already standing by the door to Kai's apartment, shrugging his black coat on, shoving his hair back. "What love life?" He tossed the shower of yellow over his shoulder as he left, and the color lingered in the air for a little, the moment hanging, before the door opened again less than five seconds later. Yixing poked his head back in. "I apologize. The Love Life has arrived."

And then Yixing's head was replaced by a blond one and Kai sighed, sagging back against the counter. A nervousness was already building up in his drive to paint, and both Yixing and Sehun knew he painted in the afternoon. Then he chuckled to himself. Sehun was not going to be pleased with his mood.

Sehun's voice was usually a dark maroon, which was okay—not Kai's favorite, just okay—but the important thing was that it didn't make something ugly when Sehun was mewling in bed on his back with Kai deep inside him, or when their moans mingled while the lights in the room were dimmed as low as they went.

"I know you're supposed to be painting," was the first thing Sehun said as he shouldered his way around Yixing and closed the door, carelessly kicking off his shoes with his heels in that childish way that made Kai want to go carefully put them straight in front of the door like some sort of goddamn OCD patient.

"I am," Kai grumbled in response.

"Well, I'm leaving for New York tomorrow after the exhibition, so this is the last time you're gonna get me alone." Sehun stood in the middle of the white room and opened his arms wide like he was expecting some sort of crucifixion. 

Kai raised an eyebrow, licking his lips. "I'm going to be at that thing for like ten minutes, we could always split together."

Sehun sighed, his arms till outstretched. Kai advanced towards him slowly and silently; after all, Sehun's eyes were closed and his head tilted slightly up. "Nah, between me and Chanyeol you'll be there the whole night and I'll be racing to the airport." He sucked in a breath as he felt Kai's nimble fingers sweep his black t-shirt up his body and raised his arms accordingly so Kai could sweep it off him. 

Kai watched almost transfixed as Sehun's hands floated gracefully down to his sides again, a full few seconds—and the way his body rippled to adjust to the new position of his limbs. His hands absently followed the muscles, tracing them over and over.

Sehun sighed and opened his eyes, smiling a little when he realized how close Kai was now. "Oh, and I need a little more money—my mom went back to the hospital yesterday."

"Mmm-hmmm." Kai was barely paying attention. 

Sehun settled his hands beneath Kai's jeans and boxers onto his ass, squeezing lightly to bring Kai even closer. "Come on, babe, you'll forget." The maroon curled up towards him like eyes of a begging puppy.

Kai sighed in frustration and retreated from Sehun, jerking his head towards the bedroom and padding on bare feet to where he kept his checkbook, arbitrarily drawing zeros and then leaving the check right by the edge of the counter so Sehun, in his flightiness, wouldn't forget it when he left the next morning. He stood in the middle of his apartment for a second, adjusting himself, deciding what kind of mood he was in, because it took constant evaluation. 

When his mind wandered towards the bedroom, though, he knew exactly what kind of mood he was in. "Well, I was supposed to be painting," he whispered in Sehun's ear when he opened the door and found a mostly-naked Sehun waiting for him. "I'll just have to put that frustration someplace else."

Sehun was really very pretty when he was being fucked properly, a blush enveloping his face and maroon escaping into the air in little appreciative puffs. Kai attacked him mercilessly, thrusting Sehun farther and farther up the bed until he came and Sehun's head hit the headboard—and they both giggled a little, the catharsis easing some of Kai's tension from not painting. 

"It's officially escalated to people are making fun of me." Chanyeol looked up at a pouting Baekhyun in the doorway. 

"Aren't they always?"

"No. No, actually, they're not, because they know that I can go complain to Taeyeon and she will light their asses on fire because that's the kind of lowkey badass that she is," Baekhyun shut the door with more force than was necessary, leaving his coat on the floor on top of his shoes in the small foyer. "Did you get food?"

Chanyeol held up the Chinese he was eating in response. "Why's the little smurf so mad, then?"

"Oh, no." Chanyeol had to contain a smile as color rose in Baekhyun's cheeks and he moved to stand over Chanyeol menacingly. "This is all because of you and I will not have you calling me a smurf on top of it—"

"What, you gonna call Taeyeon?"

"Why won't you introduce me to Kai?" Baekhyun whined, ignoring Chanyeol in favor of the Chinese calling to him by his sense of smell.

Chanyeol frowned. "Why are we still on that? How long do you hold on to things, anyway?" 

Baekhyun smiled as he chewed, sitting cross-legged on Chanyeol's worn couch and then wiggling a little farther into it as if it were his own home. Half the time it was. "Long enough that I still remember that you owe me exactly twenty-two introductions, but I'll settle for one."

"Anyways," said Chanyeol, deciding they weren't going to get anywhere with the conversation—but, alas, Baekhyun felt like bickering.

"Anyways you're going to introduce us? Let's see, for every day that you change the subject, I'll—"

"You'll what?"

"I can't tell you, because then you'd be prepared. You won't be prepared this way, you'll never know what sort of shenanigans you're in for."

"Byun Baekhyun, I am always in for shenanigans. I am the king of shenanigans."

"Only if you crown kings based on who can win an arm wrestle." Baekhyun pouted.

"That's how they used to do it a long time ago—whoever was the strongest didn't get eaten by the wolves."

"Aha! I have proof that you want to feed me to the wolves—"

"How about tomorrow?"

"Hm?" Baekhyun asked. Chanyeol rolled his eyes and shut his mouth, unable to stop it from curving into a mischievous smile.

Baekhyun realized it after a few seconds and grinned, sensing something. "What! What is it! Chanyeollllllll hyunggggggg," He left his Chinese on the table and punched Chanyeol's arm weakly, sitting up on his knees, ignoring that they sank deep into the cushions so that all Chanyeol had to do to knock him on his back was push back a little bit. 

"Not my name," Chanyeol responded, trying to hold in a guffaw.

Baekhyun eyed him for a moment, and then decided to take a huge bite of noodles while he contemplated his options. He decided to forfeit his dignity—Chanyeol had to laugh. He knew Baekhyun well enough by now that he knew Baekhyun always chose to forfeit his dignity, without exception. 

"King of Schenanagiiiiiiiiiiiiiins," Baekhyun sang in his best vibrato. Chanyeol did a little mock bow while sitting and set his food on the coffee table.

"How about tomorrow?"

"To meet Kai?" Baekhyun shot back right away, making Chanyeol believe that he'd really heard him the first time but simply hadn't been sure. 

"There's an exhibition tomorrow of all his new stuff and a few of his old pieces, and I just got a call from Yixing saying he'd be there. And I have another contingency in place to make sure he's there."

"And I'm your plus one? Can I bring a plus one? Can I bring a plus twenty? How many people are going? Is it invitation-only? Is it being publicized that Kai's actually going to show up at one of his auctions? You don't understand, this epic, this is epic! The guy's been painting for the better part of fifty years—what?"

Chanyeol was straight out laughing at Baekhyun. "Yixing just doesn't want the value of the paintings to go down because Kai finishes a painting every other day. I won't tell you more because you'll tell the whole fucking world."

"I won't. I won't," Baekhyun whined, a triumphant smile already on his face because he could see Chanyeol taking a breath to tell him.

"The guy is twenty-three. But listen, listen to me—" Baekhyun had risen, such had his triumph and suprise overwhelmed him. "Hey, smurf! Look here! I won't be with you, like, at all, because it's Kai's first time to one of these things and me and Sehun are conspiring to make sure it goes smoothly. So you'd actually be on your own most of the time, okay? But you can bring a few people—I think Yixing is still looking for guests. Just not too many, please? Kai gets overwhelmed easily. You know, genius and everything."

"Such is my thanks that I will bring someone you have never met before," replied Bakhyun. 

Chanyeol narrowed his eyes. "You've been running around with someone new, but I haven't said anything, and you should be glad, because I haven't said anything to Taeyeon." By Baekhyun's look of panic, he knew he was right.

"Okay, he's hot but like totally not my type, okay? Okay? Do you know the singer Kyungsoo?"

Chanyeol stared at Baekhyun in disbelief. "You've been running around with Kyungsoo? I've been wanting to produce a song for him for forever! You say schanagins for me, you have no idea! I've been betrayed!" Chanyeol clutched his chest. 

Baekhyun just raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Well, whatever, I'll bring him tomorrow. Sounds like a plan. Now can we please get to this song I've been working on? I wanted to give it to Taeyeon but—"

"You want to give everything to Taeyeon. Let me look at it first." Chanyeol sighed and decided cleaning up their food wasn't worth it, getting up and padding across the hall to the only other room in the apartment, his baby, the pride of his life, his studio.

Kyungsoo wasn't an art person. It wasn't that he didn't think he could be an art person—he just didn't have time. The best he could do was watch a movie on the flight from one city to the next. But Baekhyun had convinced him it would be a quiet way to spend the night, and his managers had been mysteriously delighted when he'd told asked them if he could go. So, rather than appear on some radio show or other, Kyungsoo was attending Kai's fifth annual art exhibition. He'd felt his eyes grow wider and wider as their car drove down the block towards the studio; the line wound all the way down the block and around the corner. Even Kyungsoo could have told the ones at the back that there was no way they were getting in that night. 

Baekhyun explained the whole thing hurriedly to him as they entered, because he'd been on the phone with Chanyeol the whole way there trying to navigate, and Kyungsoo had been forbidden to speak because "then we'd never get there because the giraffe wouldn't be able to focus because he wants to produce for you so bad."

The whole affair was, if Kyungsoo understood correctly a hunt for the odd one out; a hunt for an artist in hiding. It struck Kyungsoo that if Kai hadn’t showed himself before and he didn’t want to be found this time, maybe he just didn’t want to be found. But it was none of his business. He looked over at Luhan as they gave their coats to coat check.

“Do you know anybody here, or are you like me?”

Luhan shrugged. “This is your job, I still don’t get how you’re this famous but so bad at big parties.”

“I’m not bad at big parties!” Protested Kyungsoo indignantly. “I love fan meets. I love meeting fans.”

Luhan huffed. “Fans. There are very few fans here.” They looked around the gallery. There weren’t very many paintings hanging on the pure white walls; Kyungsoo counted seven in sight, although they were all on relatively small canvasses, so he guessed there were probably some bigger ones farther towards the back. Kyungsoo slid a glance at Baekhyun, who was scanning the room nervously. He decided not to say anything when he saw a very tall man in a formal suit sneak up behind Baekhyun so that Baekhyun gave a little start when the taller one’s hands covered his eyes. 

“You made it!” the giant said happily. Kyungsoo immediately liked him; he had a wide, white smile and a deep, booming voice. “Except since I’ve been trying to get you here for the past half hour I haven’t really gotten to enjoy the party". Chanyeol had been speaking in the low, familiar tones best friends used, but he stopped when he caught sight of Kyungsoo, his eyes widening comically. “Oh—oh my—Kyungs—Do Kyungsoo?!” He turned to Baekhyun, unbelieving. “You actually brought Do Kyungsoo to my show, I—“

“You’re Kai?” Kyungsoo asked—he’d called it ‘my show’”.

“Me? No. Me?” Chanyeol gave a little giggle—strange, in a throat so low-pitched. “I couldn’t draw anything past a stick person if my life depended on it. I am not Kai. I just know him, and Baekhyun has been hounding me for months about meeting him. You know how stubborn he can be.” There was a note of something in that last phrase that made Kyungsoo think he was trying to gage Kyungsoo’s relationship with Baekhyun, but he could have been imagining it.

“Kyungsoo has that amiable kind of personality where he doesn’t have to bicker with me about everything,” cut in Baekhyun. Then, turning to Kyungsoo: “Chanyeol’s actually a producer, a music producer, at my studio. Which is why he’s drooling over you like a fan.”

“I’m a really good producer,” cut in Chanyeol. “But I would totally understand if you were, you know, already comfortable with someone or something, because it happens and—“

“I’ve actually been producing a lot myself,” Kyungsoo said with a frown. “I don’t know, I just— no one has really fit what I wanted yet." He looked up into Chanyeol’s face, hoping his eyes weren’t doing that thing where they popped out of his head and cursing his height. “Do you have a card?”

Chanyeol nearly choked on his drink, setting it down and promptly forgetting about it and rummaging hurriedly through his coat, eventually coming up with a card only slightly bent that read PARK CHANYEOL and then a phone number. Kyungsoo liked where this night was heading already; he found all producers interesting, even if he didn’t end up working with them. 

But Chanyeol had caught sight of someone across the room, and, as respectfully as he could, he leaned down to whisper something in Baekhyun’s ear that clearly made Baekhyun very excited. 

“I’ll be right back,” was all the explanation Kyungsoo received from Baekhyun as he gripped Chanyeol’s coat and let the man lead him across the room. Kyungsoo watched their progress for a moment before looking around himself. Luhan had promptly disappeared from his side, and he felt like he’d seen every face in the room on some billboard or another—meaning he’d probably met a lot of them before, but they were being too polite to walk up him and actually initiate a conversation. 

He decided to make a lap and actually see what he’d been brought here to see. The first painting was a mouth, smiling a little bit and deeply dimpled. Yellow smoke leaked from between the lips to create fascinating, swirling patterns that reminded Kyungsoo of a poem. The next wasn’t of anything in particular: it was just a flow of vibrant, violent bright reds and oranges, interspersed with little spots of dull blue that seemed pitiable to Kyungsoo—and he didn’t ask himself why a few blue specks in a painting could be pitiable.

He wanted to run straight past the next painting the moment he saw it. How a painting could make one uncomfortable, Kyungsoo had no idea, but the mustard yellow and neon green clashed in shape and shade and made him physically shiver. 

He stopped in front of the next one for a long time. It was very simple, but each color seemed to have a voice, each color wove about the other so that Kyungsoo felt like he could stare at it all day. Hands shoved in his pockets, that’s precisely what he settled down to do, rocking back on his heels a little bit and humming a song that had just now entered his head. You’re my best friend… the painting had some sort of longing lingering around the fringes that Kyungsoo just couldn’t put his finger on. 

He heard a throat clear behind him, and the first time he thought someone genuinely had a flem or something, but the second time he was sure it was pointed and so turned around to face yet another giant—that is, in the vertical direction. He looked young and his lips were pressed tightly together. His arms were crossed expectantly.

“I think you’ve been looking at it long enough,” he said. “That is, unless you’d like to buy it. You’re that singer, right? Do Kyungsoo?” The guy’s angled eyes raked him up and down once. “You’re hot.”

Kyungsoo half-smiled; he was used to those sorts of comments. “No, sorry I’m taking up space,” he said.

“No you’re not Do Kyungsoo? I swear you are, though,” the guy replied. 

“I meant no, I’m not going to buy it,” clarified Kyungsoo. “But I am who you think I am, actually.”

“I’m Sehun,” the guy introduced himself, holding out his hand. “Hey, you came in with that deer-eyed guy, right?”

“What, Luhan?” Kyungsoo twisted around Sehun looking for his friend. He was standing in front of the yellow lips painting, his brows furrowed. “Yeah. A soccer player.”

“Wahh.” Sehun looked from Kyungsoo to Luhan and back again. “He is way too pretty to be playing soccer.” And then Sehun drifted away towards Luhan without another word to Kyungsoo.

Half of Kyungsoo wanted to ignore Sehun, who seemed to be playing host with some measure of competency, and just look at the painting some more. But he decided he didn’t really want to attract more attention to himself, so he just continued, painting to painting, until he was back where he’d begun and it had been less than an hour since he’d arrived. Baekhyun was nowhere to be found, besides—probably following Chanyeol around. 

You know how stubborn he can be. Chanyeol had really sounded like a fond boyfriend or something. It wasn’t hard to make the jump that Chanyeol was the mysterious producer Baekhyun had been trying to set him up with for the past few moths.

There certainly wasn’t anything interesting in the coat check area, although Kyungsoo could feel the girl working there ogling him unabashedly. He decided to wander while he was out of the hawk eyes of his managers. There was a set of stairs across from the coat check, and just for fun Kyungsoo put a finger to his lips and winked at the coat check girl as he slipped into the cool, concrete-filled stairwell.

Up or down, up or down? Kyungsoo played eenie meenie miny mo in his head and decided to descend, humming that song again. After the first flight he began to sing it, trusting no one was around to hear him.

Oh, you make me live

Whatever this world can give to me

It’s you, you’re all I see

Oh, you make me live, now honey,

Oh, you make me live

The song echoed off the walls and made it seem bigger than it felt coming out of his body and sweeter than it felt as he sang it. Finally he hit the bottom and decided he didn’t feel like going back up to the party, and he didn’t want to sit here, in the bottom of a stairwell, and wallow, so he ventured further, the door squeaking as he pushed it open. 

Oh, you make me live

Whenever this world is cruel to me

I got you, to help me forgive

Oh, you make me live, now honey,

Oh, you make me live

It was a garage, but it was mostly empty; there was a car here and there, but they were probably all staff, because Kyungsoo and the rest of the guests at Kai’s gala would have been dropped off by car, and all those people waiting outside—well, who knew. He focused on the ground, following a yellow line that separated the spaces by putting one foot in front of the other. His voice echoed even more down here and boosted his confidence like the recording studio didn’t. He ventured up his range and threw in some ad libs. 

Not a bad night, after all. He’d have to thank Baekhyun at the end of the night.

Suddenly Kyungsoo heard a sound besides his voice and his head jerked up suddenly. A good thing too, because in a few meters the line he was following ended at a solid concrete wall. He was facing a figure crouched on the ground with a spray paint bottle in his hand. Kyungsoo’s first reaction was to panic; to think that this was some vandal. Kyungsoo was a small person and he could dance, not defend himself.

Then he saw the wall the figure had been painting on and scrapped the idea immediately. The art was instantly recognizable—it was almost the same as the painting all the way upstairs he’d stared at for so long, but there were slight anomalies. Colors bounced off one another more, and the blues and purples dominated instead of pale yellows and oranges. It was also rushed and not nearly as painstaking as the previous one. Next to it was a slightly more finished work that looked something like a wave and something like an explosion.

Kyungsoo’s eyes finally made their way to the figure, which unfolded itself to reveal a tall man standing before him. Kyungsoo wondered why everyone he was meeting today was tall. But this man was so beautiful that for a moment Kyungsoo wondered if he was a part of the painting, if the garage had induced some kind of dreamlike state and he was imagining that paintings were real. 

But the man’s eyes were wide and sparkled with warm honey even under the harsh lights. His dark hair was slicked carefully back and he wore a sharp black suit; he clearly belonged at the exhibition and not down here with a bunch of spray paint.

“Don’t let me stop you,” breathed the man; Kyungsoo would have bet anything that this was Kai, even though he was clearly decades younger than everyone thought he was.

“Hmm?” Kyungsoo’s eyes didn’t know what to look at: Kai’s yes, the rest of his graceful form, or the wall he’d been painting on. They darted between the three, so that Kai had to duck his head a little to catch his eye.

“Singing,” he murmured. His voice sounded like his eyes, warm and sparkling. “That’s the song for two hearts.” he paused, but Kyungsoo knew his confusion was written on his face. “You’re My Best Friend,” Kai clarified. “The song.”

“Yeah, the painting did remind me of that song, a little,” answered Kyungsoo. “You—you’re Kai, right? You made all those paintings up there?”

Kai looked nervous now, setting his paint bottle down carefully and inspecting his hands for paint. “Yixing never told me what to do if someone caught me red-handed.”

“Here, let me make it easier for you,” answered Kyungsoo gently, noticing the recognition-shyness he himself had experienced when he’d been a freshman singer. “You are Kai. So, how are you enjoying yourself at the gala? Felt the need to paint that badly?” He smiled shyly and motioned to the wall.

“I’ve never seen them all together,” Kai answered as explanation. “It freaked me out a little. I thought I was fucking ready to see them all, but fuck. Oh well. I’m sure this is going to be a big story tomorrow morning.” he gestured towards the wall.

“Same,” replied Kyungsoo. “I like your paintings, though. You’re amazing.” 

Kai opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, blushing, biting his lip. “You can sing again, if you want,” he said quietly.

“Okay, what should I sing? I can sing and you can paint. I wonder how much any one of those fans up there would pay to be where I am right now.” 

Kai shrugged. “I paint for them, so as long as they get to see what I make, I’m sure they’re okay. Are you a singer, like—actually, by trade a singer?” He moved to lean against the wall. 

Kyungsoo lunged forward and caught his shoulder just before it hit the wall, scraping his hand a little and getting paint on it, but saving Kai’s shoulder. Kai looked from his shoulder to Kyungsoo with wide eyes. “Yeah,” replied Kyungsoo, ignoring his pounding heart. He held out his paint-y hand. “Do Kyungsoo.”

Kai took his hand, grinning. “Kai,” he said, but Kyungsoo had to take a moment before replying, because he felt blindsided by Kai’s smile. It was youthful and innocent and warm and Kyungsoo immediately wanted to make it happen again. Then he noticed Kai leaning towards the wall again and his hand shot out, but Kai’s shoulder never connected and Kai just chuckled. 

“Gotcha,” he murmered. Kyungsoo just smiled because Kai was smiling again. 

“Whatever. Why do you want to be in love so bad?” It sounded like a perfectly normal thing to ask in his head, possibly because he’d had that song running around in his mind for the past half hour—possibly because some idiot part of his brain was treating this encounter like some kind of dream—a result of the dimness and the echoes of their voices and the gorgeousness of the man in front of him. 

Whatever he’d thought it would sound like, in reality it sounded intimate and intrusive and a blush immediately bloomed on Kyungsoo’s cheeks. Kai just blinked. He seemed at a loss of what to do for a second but then he laughed a little. “You mean the song—the painting,” he said.

Kyungsoo shrugged. “I guess. I’m sorry, I guess it’s late and they had drinks upstairs and—“

“I am a lover of all things warm and fuzzy, and love is warm and fuzzy” Kai declared, grinning, startling a laugh out of Kyungsoo. “Seriously! You should meet my dogs—” 

The paint was forgotten, and so was the song, for the time being. Kyungsoo didn’t hear his phone buzzing a few minutes later as his voice rose with Kai’s in excitement over Garden State; Kyungsoo thought no one had ever seen it. Since they were in a basement, they couldn’t see the sky, but it had been black when they’d arrived, so it wouldn’t have helped anyway. 

The thing that cut them off from one another was coat check girl. Hers was the only car in view of Kai and Kyungsoo, an old beat-up chevvy malibu that choked and sputtered to life. 

“Quick,” Kai whispered with a smile to Kyungsoo. “If you don’t move, she won’t see you.”

“I though you were a delinquent when I found you down here,” Kyungsoo answered, giggling. “Just turn your back and start painting.” Kai obeyed him immediately, whirling around gracefully and making random marks on the wall. 

Kyungsoo gaffawed. “I thought you were an artist! You—“

“Help me, then!” Answered Kai. “I’d rather no one knew this was me down here.”

So Kyungsoo helped cover up the rest of the evidence of their presence all night and they stumbled up the stairs together to find an empty studio and an angry Baekhyun and Chanyeol sitting on a bench in the middle, playing with each other’s hands. The walls were mostly bare now; only the off putting yellow and green painting remained. 

Chanyeol saw Kai looking at it. “I told you not to put that one up,” he said. “First off, it’s rude, but you know no one’s going to buy it, no one’s going to want to look at it.”

Kai was looking at the painting with a strange expression. Then he sighed. “They’ll have to,” he said quietly, shrugging. “I do.”

Before Kyungsoo could ask him what he meant Chanyeol was up and had their coats. “Also, it’s three a.m., and I know I told you to have fun here and everything but I expected your antisocial ass to bail after at most an hour. Not to mention you weren’t even here in the room to enjoy everyone’s very genuine amazement at your genius my friend.” Kai was quiet, letting Chanyeol berate him with an ineffable air that made Kyungsoo like him even more, if that was possible.

Part of him still felt like this was all a dream, and he’d wake up having missed his radio interview.

Chanyeol was peaking to Kai more quietly now as he wrestled with the coats, but both Kyungsoo and Baekhyun were straining to hear him and his booming voice wasn’t very hard to pick out.

“I also, if you’re interested, saw Sehun pick up this really pretty soccer player, so I don’t know how that’s going to work, maybe he’s taking him to New York because you won’t travel.”

“That’s okay, Sehun should live his life,” Kai replied. “He came and saw me last night anyway.” 

There was clearly a second meaning behind that, because Chanyeol chuckled. “He’s gonna leave you sometime,” was all he said.

Kai snorted. “Not of his own doing. I’m high maintenance, but I’m a great lay.”

Then they emerged from the coatroom and Baekhyun was thrusting Kyungsoo out the door so fast all Kyungsoo could do was throw a look behind him—one last look at those warm honeyed eyes, lip being bitten, chiseled jaw, tall, perfectly proportioned frame… he stumbled and Baekhyun practically threw him into the back of the car.

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god” Baekhyun let loose in a rumble.

“Kai is gay. I’m bi. Talk about sugar daddy goals.”

“Repeat that to Chanyeol and let’s see how you feel,” was all Kyungsoo replied, grinning at the sulking expression he received. This was when he was usually beginning to go to sleep—singer’s schedule—and he felt like he was glowing for some reason.


	2. The Mirror

"Why didn't you come get me when the mail came?" Kyungsoo came flying around the corner and the poor manager had nowhere to go. It wasn't her fault; Kyungsoo usually only got fan mail that could be read whenever and replied to if he had time, on the plane or in the car. The whole room was staring at him, open mouthed—no one had ever seen him really mad before. 

Kyungsoo stopped and took a deep breath, clutching the letter in his hand, loathe to turn it over now. "Well, whatever, I got it, and I need you to send this out immediately. Who's handling my schedule?" he whirled, looking for the mousey thirty-something who usually followed him with his tablet open in his hands for anyone to steal and grab.

He finally found the man already waiting in the car. He was sure that, by now, he'd managed to frustrate just about everyone trying to manage him. To some extent, he understood; he was usually a perfect show pony and everyone got a gracious smile, whether they deserved it or not. But Kyungsoo was trying to hold onto this one thing in his mind and not forget.

He shouldn't have worried; there was no way that date was going to unstick anyway. 

He had to move a show and take two extra flights to make it, but Kyungsoo made it up by having a fansign for everyone after the show where one hadn't been planned before. He felt Soojung eyeing him suspiciously as he made the plans. She knew what it looked like when he was overextending himself and she clearly disapproved.

But Kai was having another exhibition, and this time he'd been specifically invited, not just as a plus one. He could probably take a plus one if he wanted to—not that he had anyone to take.

It wasn't where it had been before, and Baekhyun refused to come with him, saying he had an important recording date with Taemin, which Kyungsoo could respect but not approve of. 

It was bigger, and people noticed him, but he noticed them less; he noticed everything less; and less and less as he made his way closer to it. The rustle of chatter, skinny wives with skinny champagne flutes, young men with fortunes to blow and scandals in their pockets, old women of another generation with their fortunes already made, wondering what to do with their retirement—they all congregated and more: a whole audience Kyungsoo had never even gotten close to, except perhaps the young men for a private concert or two. More accurately, for their sisters, the heiresses, faces caked in make up and hair more fake than real.

So he wasn't too bothered as he made his way around the room, unsurpised that most of the pieces were the same; after all, it had only been a week. He stayed away from the neon and yellow this time. 

People clearly had the same taste he did and were crowded in front of—Kyungsoo couldn't remember the name Kai had given the painting—he just thought of it as You're My Best Friend. He was forced to look longer at the other pieces, and then he came to the one that was different.

Some self-centered part of him—perhaps that pampered part that emerges in everyone who's known by more than a million people—thought that maybe the whole thing was being thrown for him, so he'd come and see this painting.

He'd sung plenty that Friday night, for about an hour there in the middle, while Kai closed his eyes and looked like he was sleeping, his still face carved in relaxation. This one had been the very last. Just like the last painting, the song popped right into his head.

He wondered why Kai associated paintings with songs, and why he did, too.

That was unusual—even if a song sounded one way to one person, it was sure to sound slightly different to someone else.

It's not like they shared souls or anything.

He placed a call to his dad, who still handled his finances—not because Kyungsoo couldn't, but because it was the only way he felt helpful, and he knew Kyungsoo would send him all the money he made anyways. His dad was more excited than Kyungsoo had expected him to be when he was asking for very large sums of money, but he supposed his father thought it mean something interesting was happening in his life. Also ironic, because as the father of a singer, he should probably be worried about that very thing happening.

Again, Kyungsoo marveled at how different this crowd was from the first exhibition, how different, how less warm. Perhaps he hadn't given Chanyeol and Baekhyun enough credit where credit was due for making that one exhibition inviting for Kai. 

The host, a sleazy-looking skinny guy with hair so slicked back it may as well have been cemented to his head, almost choked on his watered-down champagne when Kyungsoo walked up to him and point-blank asked to buy the painting. But, when presented with a check and Kyungsoo's perfect credit rating, there was little he could do but sputter and place the little card next to the painting that said sold—now that Kyungsoo was a proud owner, he noticed the little signs littered the room and few paintings remained unsold.

He wavered between staying and going with his painting, but some freak kind of excitement inside him compelled him to stay. It wasn't the feeling he got when he went on stage, and that was the best feeling he could think of off the top of his head.

His phone buzzed and Kyungsoo took it out automatically with a twitch. His manager had scheduled a private concert that evening and there was a car waiting outside for Kyungsoo 'whenever he was ready'. 

Overcome with a childish obstinance, Kyungsoo huffed and pouted, looking around for the host, who had wandered away while Kyungsoo stood in front of a painting that looked vaguely like a piano. He finally found him talking to some pretty young thing who looked positively terrified, and after Kyungsoo had snatched the host away, she followed his movements as if she'd just met her knight in shining armor. 

"Do you know an address for Kai? Or some way to contact him, or—or his people? Of course, you wouldn't know how to contact him, sorry."

"Why? Is there a problem with the painting?" The host looked worried.

"No!" Kyungsoo's voice was a little too loud, and there was a brief susurrus as the room quieted in curiosity before returning to its previous hum. "No, I—it's a business thing."

The host looked like he wanted to ask something else but visibly restrained himself, his bulbus adams apple bobbing up and down one, then again. "I can put you in contact with Zhang Yixing, if you really want. But he's a very important person, you understand. He's the only person who publicly knows Kai and his identity. This can't be some little wish to say thank you or something."

"What's your name?" Kyungsoo asked, looking the mousey man up and down one more time.

"Kim Hanjin, sir."

"Kim Hanjin. Well, I'll make sure to mention you for how helpful you were. What did you say Mr. Zhang's number was again?"

The host was clearly unsettled, blinking a few times before reaching into his coat and pulling out a light yellow buisness card. It didn't have a phone number on it, just an address. "I am only given one of these per exhibition, you understand," The host said, his voice now quiet and cautious. "But you're a famous singer, and you've been in the business awhile, and you're a buyer on top of that." He seemed to be trying to convince himself that giving the card to Kyungsoo was okay. When Kyungsoo took it, the man held onto it for a few tense seconds before finally letting go and then watching, doumbfounded, as Kyungsoo made an immediate exit.

"Oh my dear lord in heaven jesus fucking christ our savior holy motherfucking—" Kai turned around to stare at Yixing standing in the entranceway. 

"I don't think I've ever heard you swear so much in the whole time I've known you, he muttered to Yixing's wide-eyed stare, and turned back to the television.

It took Yixing a few more moments to gather himself and make his way cautiously over to the couch, approaching Kai like a shy deer. "And I know I've never seen you turn on that television on in your life. Kai, look at me."

Kai slid his eyes towards Yixing for a moment, but it did little since the yellow vapor of his speech was already obstructing his view of the TV. He sighed and paused the movie. 

"Kai, I've heard—you railed against me installing a TV in the first place! Trust me, I've—I've regretted it..." His voice escaped into the air with little puffs of yellow indignation. Then he saw what Kai was watching and fell back onto the couch, his thinking face on. "Isn't Kyungsoo the singer you met at that exhibition you went to? Baekhyun told me you disappeared for most of the time."

"Yeah, there was this full-length concert online, I figured I'd watch it." Kai shrugged. By this time, the air was totally absent of that diluted purple that had been coming from the speakers and he was mourning it a little bit.

"Wow, Sehun has some serious competition. Or whatever. He bought that painting you just did, you know." Kai's eyes snapped up to Yixing and Yixing laughed nervously, put off by the intensity of Kai's gaze. "That wasn't all. He got my card. I know I'm not a very scary person, but I pay those hosts hansomely not to give those cards out to just anyone, because they have the address of our building on them." Yixing lived in the apartment next to Kai's: Kai's was the big suite on the corner, but Kai honestly loved visiting Yixing's apartment, which was smaller but felt very lived in. He supposed it was the presence of warm colors and wood, which he liked—but only for a time.

"He got your card. And?" Kai really just wanted to get back to watching Kyungsoo's concert. He lived his life mostly moment-to-moment, so he had no expectations or even opinions about Kyungsoo at the moment: only the purple imprint that still lingered in the corners of his mind from that night and the color of Kyungsoo's voice when it was coming out of the television. He could remember Jinah's voice in judgemental, dirty yellow even now: "Your mind—it's like—it's worse than a child's! You don't think ahead of yourself, you don't remember the past, and you act purely on instinct—no—not a child—a dog—"

"And he invited you to a private concert tomorrow night. Not like, just you watching, but apparently it's pretty small, the venue is outside and not too big. Your wife's crowd, though. But don't worry, I can help you deflect."

Jongin tried to remember the kind of friends Jinah had invited to their wedding, or who she'd brought over to their apartment before it all began to unravel very quickly. Not a single color came to mind.

He almost said no out of force of habit—in fact, before Yixing's words had evaporated into the air the word no was pushing it's royal blue way out of his mouth and he had to clench his jaw to stop it, looking from Yixing to the television frozen on Kyungsoo's face, eyes closed, to Yixing again.

"I'm not talking to Jinah's crowd," he said firmly, his voice escaping in a sure sunset blue stream, but Yixing, ever happy, ever bubbly, was already embracing him and ruffling his hair fondly.

"I have Chinese in my apartment if you want some later," said Yixing, getting up.

"You just got here! It's not like I'm painting yet—" Kai had actually been looking forward to a quiet game of cards with Yixing, but Yixing clearly changed his plans on a dime.

"No, no—I was just checking in to make sure you could come to the concert," Yixing lied—Kai could always tell when Yixing was lying, and he suspected everyone else could, too, even if they couldn't see the drops of darker yellow that littered Yixing's really big lies. "Go ahead, unpause. I'll get my noisy self out of the way."

Kai threw a pillow at him and unpaused the TV.

Kyungsoo spent the whole next day with his eyes wide open, nervous for the concert in a way he'd never been nervous for a concert since his debut. He must have apologized to the managers and producers a thousand times, trying not to laugh at their indignant expressions when Kyungsoo micromanaged this thing or that. He knew there were plenty of artists a thousand times worse than himself. 

Kyungsoo even had a nickname: The Show Pony. Not among his fans—to them he was the penguin, or simply oppa, but in the producing world. Handae, his old manager for two years, had even dressed up as the show pony one halloween and looked the fans straight in the eyes while wearing a ridiculous horse costume. The story had lingered in the news until Christmas: Kyungsoo's Horse Best Friend. Handae hadn't heard the last of it until he was pulled to another rookie to manage. Kyungsoo even saw him every once and a while when he did songs with Chen, which wasn't an infrequent occurrence.

But he was jittery, and he put them through rehersal so many times that one of the dancers had to physically pass out before a manager dragged him offstage and tried, unsuccessfully, to get some food into him. It was too important. He drank water, and plenty of it, going to the bathroom way too much for it to be normal, but his voice had to be ready for the real thing.

The crowd was small and judgemental; just the kind of crowd Kyungsoo hated, the kind whose eyes followed each movement he made searching for a mistake out of habit, because, perhaps, that was how they lived their lives. The quiet sounds of the band setting up slowly morphed into the low murmur of anticipation.

He came out with a run, walking onto the stage as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And it was; for him, the stage was home, no matter how nervous he felt. But that wasn't all; the naturalness wasn't all. He was searching, the moment he walked on, from the first note he sang, for melanin-blessed skin and sculpted cheekbones and honey-intense eyes.

First pass of the stage: nothing.

Second pass of the stage: nothing.

Third time up the stage: nothing.

Kyungsoo's singing began to become more desperate. Being on stage isn't a rational thing, however controlled he ever wanted it to be. He'd learned the hard way that everything had to be practiced to the point that he didn't have to think about it, because when the time came, chances were he wouldn't think about anything. But now he was thinking a million things at once, and somehow it all got twisted into a manic belief that if he sang better, louder, more beautifully, Kai would appear.

Kai didn't appear.

Kyungsoo did two encores, and then, when he tried to go out again, he found a hand restraining him and the lightbulbs focused on the stage glowing with the heat leftover from when they'd been turned on. He felt dizzy. He was frustrated. He wanted to hit something—he'd never wanted to do that after a concert before. Concerts were supposed to be therapeutic.

He didn't see the faces that floated before him, repeating 'bathroom' wherever he went and eventually winding up in one. The door shut with a slam that hurt his ears, and then everything fell silent and a faint buzzing began just inside his ear, tiny fairy-drills trying to drive him crazy.

Just like anyone else, Kyungsoo looked in the mirror. You always look in the mirror when you're in a bathroom. His face looked too pale, but what unsettled him the most was the hysterical expression he couldn't seem to wipe from his face. He stared at himself for what felt like a century, only snapping out of it when he noticed something written on the mirror.

It was in nail polish, and even through the fog of sleep-deprivation, lack of food, exhaustion, and desperation, Kyungsoo wondered why someone wouldn't just use lipstick: nail polish would be a bitch to clean off.

Then it slowly came into focus and Kyungsoo felt himself calm down a fraction; his chest collapsed a bit and he let out a short puff of air, running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. sorry, was all it said. But below it was a hasty outline of what was unmistakably Kyungsoo and unmistakably drawn by Kai.

He had to find him. Logic had gone out the door and Kyungsoo had prepared for this concert more than any other concert in his life, except maybe for debut and the showcase for his second album. He ran a hand through his hair again, absently reaching for the cloth he kept sometimes in his jacket, but instead meeting a small, rough piece of paper.

The yellow card turned once, slowly, between Kyungsoo's thin fingers.

When he peeked his head out the bathroom, making sure the quiet clink of dishes in some far away kitchen called no cooks hurrying through the halls, and that his managers weren't quite as dedicated as a helicopter parent—that they didn't wait for him while he peed. He glanced once more at himself in the mirror, then decided that was enough. Looking at himself in the mirror just made him more hysterical, which only made him look more hysterical... well, needless to say, it was a cycle.

It had been a few years since he'd taken the bus anywhere, but all he had were a few coins in his pockets—flight risk of having managers to pay for everything around him most of the time. A memory bubbled up from some unknown well within his mind, crystal clear, of the bus pulling up when he was thirteen years old, on his way to his first show: the first time he had ever sung in front of anyone. That theatre was gone now, replaced by a massive apartment building.

He hoped it was the right address.

He knew it probably wouldn't be—what kind of luck, that he could think clearly enough to get there, right now? He hadn't eaten since yesterday. No, that wasn't true—he'd had a few skittles this morning.

The bus driver barely spared him a second glance and Kyungsoo didn't even care, just slid into the first seat he could find, which he knew was for the handicapped. He felt really guilty for a second but then his knees buckled and he mentally shrugged. The carpet on the seat was rough like sandpaper and the window he leaned his head against was freezing cold from air conditioning.

The building that stretched above him as he stumbled off the last, soot-stained step of the bus was sparkly glass, reflecting all the night lights of the city. Of course it's the most beautiful place in the city, Kyungsoo thought. An artist lives here. Because, he reasoned, artists make the world around them art, too. They couldn't help it.

He didn't necesarily include himself in the class of artists that affected the world like that.

The door was heavy. Kyungsoo leaned against it, hard, and finally put some pressure through his legs to force the damn slab of glass open. His vision was getting blurry; he couldn't feel his tongue anymore. 

He thought he probably pressed the button for the right apartment before he finally succumbed to the blackness that had been stalking him, sinking to the shining, just-mopped floor with a sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: sorry for the heavy concentration of heavy... but fluff coming up!


	3. Epiphany

Kyungsoo woke up slowly for the first time since he could remember. He opened his eyes to the soft kind of sunlight that only happened when a thin curtain was hung over the window; his apartment didn't have any curtains, but he usually didn't sleep there anyway. Then he sighed, filling his lungs all the way with sweet air, letting the breath out slowly and feeling as his ribcage deflated to its normal size. Slowly, grudgingly, he began to wonder where he was, surprising himself when he fell the first time he tried to raise himself, his arms lacking the strength.

He was hungry. Now that he was awake he could feel a harsh stabbing in his stomach. He looked down at himself. He wasn't wearing what he remembered he had been—that is, he wasn't wearing his stage clothes, but rather an incredibly soft long-sleeve white shirt. It felt like a blanket. Sighing, he swung his legs over the bed, intending to figure out his location and then the location of the food. 

A groan emanated from the ground and Kyungsoo snapped his legs back on to the bed, startled, adrenaline sleepily beginning to creep its way along his veins. Timidly, Kyungsoo peeked over the side of the bed. It wasn't a huge room; normal sized, with a bed and a dresser and a window. Lots of white, but nothing particularly telling. Lying beside the bed, uncurling from a ball, was Kai, in blue silk pajama pants and a white cotton t-shirt, his hair mussed,

He looked soft and his skin glowed in the filtered sunlight and Kyungsoo just kept peeking at him from the bed as Kai awoke slowly. He was fascinated; this Kai was entirely different from the Kai he had met at the art show, at least in appearance. He was enchanting. 

Kai, for his part, just stretched and rubbed his eyes, looking around a little and then shoving a hand through his hair, seeming to mourn its messiness for a moment before sniffing the air. Then he noticed Kyungsoo staring at him from the bed and his mouth dropped a little open, his eyes widening a little bit to give him an expression akin to a baby surprised during a game of peek-a-boo.

"You're up!" he said stupidly, still stretching.

"I'm up," replied Kyungsoo, matching him in eloquence.

They stared at one another for a moment.

"You were in my lobby," said Kai, scratching the back of his head. "You pressed the button for my apartment, and when I got down there you were—you'd passed out, I think. I'm not the doctor, anyway. The doctor said you were probably just some combination of stressed and sleep-deprived and hungry, and I figured he was right..."

Kyungsoo groaned and buried his head in the blanket. He would have kept it there forever, but his stomach betrayed him, growling angrily. "This might be the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me, and it's not even in the news," he mumbled, steeling his courage to look at Kai again.

He swore that Kai was glowing, a knowing grin on his face. "Hungry?" He asked through his smile.

It was a smile that made Kyungsoo feel as secure as if he were at home with his parents, and warm in a way that made him sure he could brave the arctic if he only had Kai's smile. He nodded sheepishly.

Kai led him out of the room and into a large apartment, full of shades of white and grey and brown, and into a small kitchen where Kai presently produced some pizza. He offered to warm it up but Kyungsoo laughed right in his face.

"I prefer it cold," he explained. "always."

"Hmm, me too, I just thought that was weird," Kai replied, sitting and swiveling back and forth like a little kid on the stool in front of the island. Kyungsoo had to remind himself to eat slowly so as not to overwhelm his stomach. He wasn't about to go puking in front of Kai too, although for all he knew he already had. 

"Homemade soup all ready would have been more romantic, right?" Asked Kai remorsefully as he watched Kyungsoo eat. "Or maybe if you'd woken up to the smell of bacon."

"Look at me." Kai turned his honeyed eyes to Kyungsoo as directed. "This is the best-tasting meal I have ever had in my life." 

He said it with such serious sincerity that Kai laughed out loud, making Kyungsoo grin—with his mouth closed, since it was stuffed with pizza. "Where are all the paintings, anyways?" Kyungsoo asked, his eyes wide as they explored the simple apartment. 

"Oh my god, I sell all those," Kai said. "I get so tired of them while I'm painting them that I'm just glad when I can get a painting off the easel. Life is a painting, anyway." He'd been eyeing the pizza for a while, and now he grabbed a slice while Kyungsoo took a break from eating. "If you don't mind me asking—but I think it's probably a pretty normal thing to ask—why did you appear in my lobby passed out?"

Kyungsoo gave him an accusatory stare. "You said you were coming to my concert," he said. "It was an awesome concert. Those people are never going to forget that concert. You missed out."

Kai was avoiding his eyes. "It's... complicated. I really tried, I was there—I was there and everything, Kyungsoo." his voice sounded a little broken, but then it softened. "Trust me, I know how beautiful your voice is. If anybody knows, it's me."

"You've never even heard me sing!" Replied Kyungsoo, exasperated. "I mean, sure, you can get my music, or—or maybe my album or something, but you've never been to a concert, because I—" he stumbled on his words— "i would have remembered you."

"Still doesn't answer why you appeared at my house," answered Kai. 

"I'm magical," Replied Kyungsoo with his mouth full. Kai raised an eyebrow. 

"How should I know?" Kyungsoo cracked under Kai's compassionate gaze. "I wasn't in my right mind, I—I don't even remember how I left the concert! I think I was mad that you didn't show up, and your manager's card was in my pocket at the time—probably I had some kind of deluded fantasy that I would come here and sing for you."

"But you didn't press the button for Yixing's apartment, you pressed the button for mine."

"Pure luck, it was fate, my mysterious artist friend. There's no way I could have known my apartment number."

"No, you're right. My button is right next to his, you probably pressed both of them but Yixing doesn't keep crazy hours like me so he was probably asleep. Is anyone... looking for you?"

Kyungsoo giggled. "Of course. Thousands of dollars are spent trying to locate my whereabouts. I'm actually suprised they haven't found me by now, I must have looked dreadfully scary on my way here."

Kai giggled at the thought. Then Kyungsoo remembered that Kai was the one who had found him in that state, and that he hadn't been wearing the same clothes as he was wearing now. He looked down at his shirt again, and then up at Kai.

"Did you... ?"

"Okay, but you were disgusting, and sweaty. I don't see how anybody could sleep like that." Kai pouted, his clefted chin trembling cutely. "Don't worry, your clothes are in the bathroom if you want to change. Actually, once you're done eating you could take a shower too, if you wanted."

Kyungsoo bit his lip. He must smell so bad. Self-concious, and his hunger sated, a hot shower sounded like just about the best thing in the world. It was already one of the best mornings of his life, simply because he had nothing to do that day. Well, he had plenty to do, technically, but he took this one time—just this once—he never ever did this—to hope that his fans would understand if he took a day for mental health. Probably this counted for general health, too.

Kai led him into the bathroom. The shower and the walls were a pretty lilac-grey marble, but the floor had thick white carpets on it. Kyungsoo had always carried the philosophy that you could judge someone on whether they kept carpets in their bathrooms. Bathroom floors were always cold, so when you were going barefoot about the house, it was a given that there should be carpets to welcome your feet to the bathroom, rather than foreboding cold marble floors. Especially at night, when that sort of thing could wake you up when you just wanted to brush your teeth and go to bed. 

Kai could have just left him there—he was still in his pajamas, after all—but he showed Kyungsoo how to use the shower, leaning close around Kyungsoo to do so. Then Kyungsoo remembered how he had woken up.

"Why were you on the floor when I woke up?" he asked.

"Hmm? Oh—aahh—I—I was worried. My nanny—when I was little, and I got sick, my nanny used to sleep next to my bed, in case I woke up and needed something, or something happened to me. I just thought, if something happened, or you might..." Kai trailed off blushing.

Kyungsoo tried not to swoon. He really did. But damn it if that wasn't the sweetest most romantic thing anybody had ever thought to do for him. Or had done without even thinking about it. Kyunsgoo imagined Kai there sleeping by his side all night and it sent happy little tingles through his body.

"Thanks," he said quietly, but now they were both shy and Kai left him to take his shower. As soon as the hot water rushed over his aching body Kyungsoo shuddered happily, a wistful smile lingering on his face. He kept turning the water hotter and hotter until he noticed his skin turning red, and then he used Kai's shampoo that smelled like flowers and put his clothes back on. They'd been washed, something show clothes weren't used to, so the black jeans had softened immediately and the thin white button-down shirt looked crisp like new—it must have been handwashed. So of course, as he looked here and there for a toothbrush, he began to sing, his voice echoing off the walls and giving his voice the shower quality—that quality when anything sung sounds good.

The medicine cabinet didn't have a toothbrush, but it did have a few bottles of pills—Kyungsoo thought nothing of it, since he was sure his own medicine cabinet looked a thousand times worse. He finally resorted to using what was clearly Kai's, satisfied with the clean feeling in his mouth anyway.

Kai was nowhere to be found when Kyungsoo emerged slowly clutching the shirt and pants that he'd borrowed. He decided to leave them on the kitchen counter—it was the closest flat surface—and try to find Kai as non-intrusivley as possible. He'd caught the drift, whether from Kai's refusal to out himself as an artist or his inability to attend his concert, that Kai was an incredibly private person.

He took a moment to mourn that. Kai's face would look handsome in a good two-page magazine spread. 

The first door he cracked open was the room he'd been in, clearly the guest room and rarely used. The second was the biggest, tucked into the very corner of the building so that two windows were glass. Heavy blackout curtains rested halfway down the walls, so Kyungsoo could see that it was painted a soft grey except for a space above the bed, about four feet by four feet, where Kai had broken his rule about not painting in his room. He'd never seen a painting with the same colors: tuscan reds and deep, chocolatey browns that formed to remind Kyungsoo of a swaddled baby, or perhaps a mother. It was too abstract for him to tell anything but the feeling.

Kyugsoo realized he'd been staring into Kai's room for entirely too long, so he shut the door as quietly as he could and moved on to the third and final door besides the bathroom. There was the back of Kai's head, soft and blonde, mostly blocking a canvas in front of him. Kyungsoo had to blink a few times because the room was basically a giant white box, sterile and empty except for canvasses piled in one corner, paints in another, and giant speakers in the middle of the room. 

Kai turned as soon as he heard the door open, on his feet in one graceful movement and striding towards Kyungsoo before Kyungsoo could get a good look at what Kai was looking at. "Look, it's fine that you're here and everything," Kai was saying quickly as he led Kyungsoo back out of the room and into the main apartment, "but you have to understand that I'm weird, I'm like... I'm really weird, and I... I'm sorry, that room's just for me." He looked apologetic, like his words physically hurt him.

Kyungsoo put a comforting hand on Kai's shoulder. "It's fine," he said. "It's fine, I was just looking for you, that's all. I don't intend to snoop."

"Well, I wish you would," Kai grumbled. "I'm really a very special person, actually."

Kyungsoo took a moment to digest this, trying not to laugh because the expression on Kai's face was so serious. "Why are you so special now, pray tell me," he said, trying not to sound too mocking.

"Remember how you noticed what song that one painting was? You're My Best Friend? And—and the one I did for you—yes, I did it for you, jeez—" Kyungsoo had shrieked a little at Kai's confession "—Unfair was for you too, but see, no one's ever put two and two before, except once when I literally named the painting the name of the song."

"So you associate songs with paintings?" Kyungsoo asked. Kai seemed ready to bare his soul to Kyungsoo right there in the hallway, but Kyungsoo was feeling so warm and freshly showered that he wanted to sit and curl his legs up and let his body relax. He slowly began to lead the artist into the living room, settling next to him on the couch.

"No. I see them. I just try to paint what I see. It's honestly all a sad excuse for the real thing, but if I didn't try I'd go crazy."

"Synesthesia, right?"

"Why don't you seem phased?" Kai asked, narrowing his eyes. "Do you have it too?"

"No, no, god no," Kyungsoo said, shaking his head. Kai was still perched on the edge of the couch. "No, I just... I could tell. Like, it connects in my head, the paintings and the songs, it makes sense. Except, not all your paintings are songs, right?"

"People have sounds too," Kai responded. Now that Kyungsoo was watching him closely, he noticed that Kai wasn't necessarily meeting his eyes all the time—he was mostly watching his lips. 

He licked those lips self-consciously before continuing. "So... when I talk, you see colors.... what? In the air."

Kai half-smiled, sitting back on the couch, his stare intense. "Swirling around you like your very own aura of smoke and dancing words."

Kyungsoo blinked. His mind was torn; half wanted to ask what color his voice was, and the other half was still stuck on what Kai had just said in lilting, low tones. Kai's words won out, and Kyungsoo's throat switched from speaking to singing.

"Swirling around you like your very own aura of smoke and dancing words..." he repeated in song. Kai didn't answer, just smiled that smile that lit the world up in bright angel-flames. "What color is my voice?" Kyungsoo asked. His voice had dropped so that he was now just above a whisper, his voice sounding reverent.

Kai bit his lip, his eyes wandering as the air crackled. "You voice..." he said, honey-rich tones crashing against Kyungsoo like the sea against a cliff, "Your voice looks like a shimmering river of French lilac."

They regarded each other for a moment, Kai's voice fading slowly from the echoey room.

Then Kyungsoo whipped out his phone which he had found on the table beside him when he woke up and felt he should always keep with him wherever he went so as to not disappear without a trace to the world. French lilac was clearly some type of flower, but then if he went to the actual color, it was more muted, a dark lavendarish color that—

Kyungsoo couldn't read anything on his phone anymore because Kai had leaned forward and planted a kiss on his unsuspecting lips. The phone slipped through his fingers as his eyes closed and he rocked back a little in suprise, Kai matching him inch for inch, keeping their lips tightly together.

Kyungsoo reciprocated without even thinking about it; Kai's lips were as soft as they looked and their mouths fit together like they'd been crafted from the same clay. Kai pulled away for a moment, his eyes shining. "Nothing you could look up could come close," he whispered huskily.

Kyungsoo had no answer—indeed, he'd been struck dumb and a coherent thought had yet to enter his mind. When one did, it wasn't in words and Kyungsoo reached out, his hand fitting perfectly into the nape of Kai's neck to tug the man back on top of him so they met in another kiss.

Kai smiled against Kyungsoo's lips. "I wasn't sure—" he mumbled, keeping his lips close to Kyungsoo's. Kyungsoo heard the rest of the sentence and answered by merely kissing Kai more aggressively, probing for entrance into his mouth with his tongue. Kai tried once more. "You were so weak last—" night, but he gave up on trying to finish a sentence, abandoning himself to kissing, straddling Kyungsoo on the couch and draping his long arms across the back of the couch so his arms encircled the singer.

"Watch out," he groaned once more a little while later, "It's been a while, I'm not tame..."

Kyungsoo was the type of kisser to express himself through kisses, through touch, so he just tugged on Kai's shirt, making a small triumphant sound when Kai submitted and let him take it off. Then his fingers took off, exploring Kai's abs which rippled as Kai moved against him and his back and his spine which he could feel when Kai arched his back just this way.

Soon Kai had Kyungoo's shirt off, but he seemed preoccupied with Kyungsoo's mouth, sucking on the bottom lip, swirling his tongue inside Kyungsoo's teeth, nipping his upper lip. Hot, heavy kisses were followed by teasing, back-and-forth ones. 

Kyungsoo forgot where he was, who he was, what he wanted except for the man in front of him. Finally Kyungsoo could feel that Kai was holding back and trying to content himself with merely kissing Kyungsoo. The bulge digging into Kyungsoo's thigh said differently. 

Soon Kai was lying on his back longwise on the couch and Kyungsoo lay between his legs, trying to keep his sanity in the face of Kai's subtle thrusts upwards and their mouths met hotly again and again. 

"Fucking god's sake," Groaned Kai as Kyungsoo took a break to mouth along his perfect jawline, "You just met me, you—" finally he was met with a heated stare from Kyungsoo. Kai's pupils were shot wide with lust and his hair was a mess, his lips slightly swollen and pouting. 

"You gonna stop trying to get me to not sleep with you any time soon?" Kyungsoo asked. He sounded more annoyed than he felt, but sexual frustration was beating everything else out. 

Kai just chuckled, two or three short breaths out of mildly offended indignation and then pulled Kyungsoo back down to his mouth, pushing up against Kyungsoo's crotch and extracting a low groan. Clearly, Kyungsoo's message had been sent and received, because now Kai's hands were below his waistband and grabbing his ass, pressing him closer and closer. 

A bottle of lube was produced from below the coffee table and Kyungsoo didn't question it, relieved that finally he could pull those sexy silk pants down Kai's legs in one smooth motion so that the whole length of him lay below Kyungsoo without a single item of clothing. Kyungsoo was still being blown away by Kai's mouth, and even as he prepped him he kissed him, loathe to let the artist breathe when he could be kissing. When he was three fingers in he felt Kai undoing the button on his pants and letting his member free so that it was skin on skin. Kyungsoo sighed in approval. 

Kai's lips were pillows; they were his salvation, they were dirty; they were everything. Kyungsoo couldn't believe he wanted the more that he wanted in the tightly coiled pit of his stomach, but as Kai moved beneath him, ready, needy, he took it all. When he first pushed into Kai the artist clutched his ass tightly, sending a shiver between them and nipping at Kyungsoo's lower lip. His long legs rested easily wrapped around Kyungsoo's form. 

When Kyungsoo began to move, he swore. Kai just gave a little groan, dripping sex and arching his back to give Kyungsoo a better angle. 

"Fuck."

The tight heat of Kai clenched around him as he moved, reverently at first but then with more and more need, snapping against Kai as Kai moved to meet him, finally breaking their kiss to throw his head back and fill the room with the sound of their heavy breathing and skin on skin. Kyungsoo was hitting the right spot over and over again now, getting a little grunt from each thrust, and Kai was gripping his ass tightly as if asking him to give more, more, more.

"Fuck."

Kyungsoo's voice escaped in blurry lilac as Jongin finally lost any semblance of sanity and came, feeling, faraway, as Kyungsoo followed soon after. The warmth of the boy felt right; the shape of the boy felt right, like they fit together.

This kind of epiphany was slow and languid, lazily creeping up on Jongin like the warmth of a fire being born: He never wanted to let that color go and he wanted that warmth next to him forever. After a few moments Kyungsoo rose and retreated briefly to the bathroom while all Jongin could muster the energy to do was shrug his pants back on. When he saw Kyugsoo appear in front of him again, he beckoned, and Kyungsoo came, lying down on top of Jongin again, his heavy warmth wrapping his heart in a blanket. The singer looked exhausted again, so he just sighed as Kyungsoo's big eyes fluttered closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Jongin is irresistible, how could Kyungsoo possible resist? Hope this was fluffy enough--Kyungsoo and Jongin get their very own chapter just for bonding! Comments are always always welcome.


	4. The Woman

Kyungsoo woke up oddly warm. He didn't trust hotels so he usually slept with only the sheets, which he knew were washed, so he was usually cold when he slept. Anyway, he'd read a study once when he was little that said you sleep better when you were cold—and he hadn't previously had cause to belive that wasn't true.

He yawned big and wide, the yawn sending his chest fluttering up and down and the man wrapped around him to shift his position a little. This wasn't fever warmth, nor the warmth of a hot practice room, or of a full venue packed full of bodies—well, maybe it was a little like that. Kai's heat was all mixed up with his own, and the comforter on top of them kept all the heat sealed in. 

The room was pitch black, so Kyungsoo wondered why he was so sure it was morning. Last night he'd woken up just in time for dinner and a movie before he fell asleep again, but apparently he hadn't been sleeping in the right bed, because the bed he'd slept in last night—that room hadn't had blackout curtains. 

Kyungsoo sighed and tried to extricate himself from his long-limbed bedmate without waking him. In practice, he failed—Kai's eyes slitted open for a moment before he mumbled something with pouty lips and dove back under the covers, curling up around the space Kyungsoo left behind like his body was subconciously mourning Kyungsoo's departure.

A shirt was next. The room seemed full of the low shuffle Kyungsoo's footsteps made against the carpet and the rustle of fabric he extracted from the wardrobe and the scrape of wood on wood as he opened a drawer—wrong one, socks—and another one—right one, shirts, but too big. Oh well. 

Sufficiently dressed, Kyungsoo slid the door open, wincing as bright light came pouring in through the slit, and squeezed through, hoping the light hadn't bothered Kai. He wondered what Kai saw when his eyes were clsoed, and he heard something. Did the colors appear in his head? Did they dissappear?

Straight from Kai's room he veered into the guest room where his stuff was still piled: just a phone and his thin, moneyless wallet. The phone was dead, but he figured it was worth charging, so he swiped it, automatically trying to turn it on anyway, and finally walked into the living room, rubbing that blissful sleep from his eyes.

"Who the fuck are you?"

Kyungsoo stopped a the high, insistent voice and finally looked up from the floor. Granted, he hadn't stayed over at nearly as many bachelors' houses as Baekhyun believed, but he knew that they usually didn't come with women in them—maybe a mother, or a sister, but he was sure at first glance that this woman was neither. The first word that came to his mind was model. 

She wasn't prim, her long legs propped up on top of the coffee table, her bare arms draped across the back of the couch, her chin high as she regarded him cooly. 

A thousand responses rose in Kyungsoo's mind just as a million ideas fought to be thought of. Play the playboy singer? But that was the wrong persona; he didn't exactly sing about boys. Try to be anonamous? The look in the woman's eye said he wasn't leaving without some sort of explanation. 

He absolutely knew, even from the sound of her voice, that the truth was not an option.

Adrenaline waking him up a little more, he shoved his phone in the pocket of his jeans—cursing the designer for making the pocket so small, and the inefficiency of stage clothes in general. "Do Kyungsoo," he introduced himself, keeping his voice carefully even and quiet, still hoping to leave without Kai waking up. "Kai picked me up after hearing me in the street."

"Kai... picked up Do Kyungsoo... on the street?" she raised an eyebrow. "And... what? Forgot to inform his wife that we were hosting celebrity within our walls?"

Kyungsoo choked his suprised down with effort, his face barely twitching at the word wife. "I'm sure you know what mobs can get like. You're both georgous enough to know, I'm sure."

The woman regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, then slowly extracted her legs from the coffee table and standing up in one swift motion. The way she stood almost reminded Kyungsoo of Kai—almost. She was much more careful about it—there seemed to be a thought behind every action she took.

She gave him a moment to look at her. High black heels, white short shorts, black tank top—she looked young, and her face glowed like her eyes. Kyungsoo wondered whether his wrist or her waist was bigger.

"Flattery. I always fall for flattery. Do Kyungsoo, the singer." she bit her lip, then began to advance towards him one click of a heel at a time. "I love Tender Love. What a song—your pipes—damn. But... now, correct me if I'm wrong... but Kai wanted to fuck you to My Lady. Much sexier." 

Kyungsoo's mouth fell a little open and he felt the back of his ears getting hot. If he'd been wearing his shoes by now he would have just bowed and made his escape, but his shoes were through her.

After her words had set in, the woman closed the final few meters and extended a hand to Kyungsoo. He shook it, doing his best to remember how many thousands of hands he'd shaken in his life. He used to play a game with himself: tell the person by their hand. The woman's hand was perfectly manicured, but the manicure was clearly fresh and the cuticles looked stressed, which meant she probably bit her nails and had to have them redone often as a result. Her hand was unnaturally soft—meaning she was the sort of person who was constantly applying hand lotion.

Scary.

"I'm Jinah, lady of the house," she said, her pointy voice massacreing the air like the blades of a dying helicopter. "Do Kyungsoo, as long as you don't mention anything that's gone on here, you can sneak out whenever you want, don't let me keep you—that's what you—hey, baby!" her voice rose to an unbearable shrill as she looked over Kyungsoo's shoulder, her face lighting up. 

Kyungsoo didn't dare turn around. 

"You should have called me." Kai's voice came behind him, tightly controlled, unreadable.

"I did call you, jagi. Like, three times? I'm not about to call more than that, I'm not desparate. This is my house too."

"Did you pay for it?" Kai's voice was definitley not friendly.

"Yes, I paid for it, Jongin. Don't make me rehash why I have the fucking right to enter my house."

"You should have told me, Jinah, you're embarrasing me and—"

"And someone who isn't Sehun? Do you know one of the reasons I came back?" She retrieved a magazine from her purse and brushed past Kyungsoo to brandish the magazine at Kai. "They're taking pictures of him with Luhan. You can't be booty calling him if he's publically attatched to someone, no? There's no way to keep him from—from modeling now, or you know what, doing whatever the fuck the little brat wants, because you will only fuck georgous, low-voiced—"

"Jinah would you shut up? Please? Or lower your voice? I have a headache already. Don't you? Don't you get a headache from this, Kyungsoo?" 

Jinah turned to him too, eyes flashing a challenge. Kyungsoo stood between them and kept silent. "He's Kyungsoo? So, that's it, you're over Sehun? I thought they were fucktoys, but I also thought you had a heart, Jongin—"

"Kai," Replied Kai between clenched teeth, his eyes darting nervously between Jinah and Kyungsoo. "And you also have no right to interrogate me about my life, you—"

"I'm your wife!" Jinah shrieked, her bag making an arc in the air as she gestured. Kyungsoo slowly began to back away.

"Right, and you live in Milan, or New York, or wherever you came from. I thought you had a boyfriend," Kai shot back sullenly. 

Kyungsoo took another step towards freedom, his feet silent under the fray of words. 

"I did, but then do you know what I heard? I heard that the Kai had begun showing up at his own art shows and I thought, well isn't this funny, that couldn't possibly be my Jongin— my Jongin can barely set a fucking foot out the door without crying like a goddamn baby! But lo and behold, according to Baekhyun—I had to hear it from Baekhyun—"

Kyungsoo took another step. "Jagi," Kai pleaded, his voice dropping desparately, "Please, your voice. Yell at me, but quietly. Please. I just woke up and the air's already disgusting."

"Well, you have Do Kyungsoo for that, don't you? I bet you find his voice beautiful. Kyungsoo!" She whirled to face him, a smirk appearing on her face when she saw how close he'd gotten to the door. "Uh-uh, not so fast, my friend. Kai needs you to clear the air for him because he finds my voice so repulsive." She looked at Kai with an eyebrow raised in challenge. He made a distinctly petulant face at her.

"Is she the mustard yellow and neon green?" Kyungsoo asked in a low voice, sliding his words in underneath the shrill of Jinah.

Kai burst out in suprised laughter and Jinah just stared between them fuming. But Kai's laughter subsided as quickly as it had come and he ran a hand through his hair. "Why don't we all try to be reasonable and you can let me take a shower, Jinah, and we can both let Kyungsoo sneak out like he was intending to." 

Kai made brief contact with Kyungsoo, not long enough for Kyungsoo to decode the expression dancing in his eyes. If it didn't look warm, it didn't look bitter, just... regretful. But the moment was gone so fast that Kyungsoo questioned whether it had really been there. 

"Nah, Kyungsoo will be back, and we will all have to have this conversation. I just got home, Jongin. Why can't we sit down like normal—"

"Why do you keep calling him Jongin?" Kyungsoo asked quietly, Jinah still blocking his way to the door.

"Because that's—"

"It's a nickname," Kai said quickly. Kyungsoo looked at him disbelievingly.

"Aww, that's adorable," Jinah squealed. "Or it would be if this were five years ago and I still cared to find it anything but—" the door to the apartment swung open and the man from the yellow painting walked in in a beaten-up leather jacket and nice black pants. 

"Yo Kai, have you heard anything about Do—" he looked up from his tablet and took in the situation before him. Kyungsoo looked at him with eyes as wide as moons, Jinah glared, and Kai looked between the three helplessly. 

Yixing made a quick decision and without saying another word turned on his heel and beat a hasty retreat. 

"Smart man," murmered Jinah. "Are you fucking him too or can I..." 

"No, but he's an old friend, and he is absolutely off limits," Kai growled. "He's shorter than you, anyways."

"Do Kyungsoo, you look taller on TV," Jinah said, ignoring her husband.

"No I don't," Kyungsoo replied. "If you paid attention I'm a good two or three inches shorter than all my backup dancers. But since your song was Tender Love, you don't watch me on stage, you watch the shitty fancams so you can reassure yourself that I'm not perfect."

"What, are you saying you are perfect? Do Kyungsoo, are you trying to flatter me again? I'm definitley not perfect, if I were I would have been born with a voice that Jongin can fucking stand."

"I don't think we should continue in this vein," Kai said. "Perfection is relative. And now I really have a headache and I'd really just like to go take a shower."

He was looking pale, even though he'd just woken up, and during the five minutes or so that they'd been talking he'd gone from sleepily blissful to fidgety and agitated, his eyes darting back and forth like he didn't like what was in front of them. Kyungsoo remembered that painting in vivid detail now, and he was sure that this was who the painting he had been about. It was actually very sad to him, that the girl he married—for whatever reason—had a voice he didn't like. It wasn't her fault, but it wasn't his, either. He'd snuck in a wikipedia article or too before he'd gone to sleep and been followed by Kai. People with synesthesia, especially the type Kai had—they could get overstimulated by the smallest of things.

So now he was torn. He knew what the gentlemanly thing to do was: stay and talk to Jinah and let Kai cool down and take a shower. But this had also all been a colossal mistake, and Kyungsoo felt worse each minute he was unable to apologize to the fans he'd missed by playing hookie yesterday. Whatever happiness he'd enjoyed because of Kai he could have given to a thousand people yesterday. 

"You're absolutley right, Kai," Kyungsoo said, ignoring the smirk that appeared on Jinah's face when he said Kai's name. "Listen... well, I'm not hard to find, I guess." he edged his way around Jinah, giving her a half-bow of respect. 

He made it to the door before anyone spoke again. "He'll be calling you," Jinah said. "He needs boys to art."

"You're fucking sick," came Kai's reply as Kyungsoo pulled the door open.

Jinah's rising voice followed him out into the hallway as he finally pulled the door shut with a heavy sigh. When he looked up after gathering himself Kyungsoo saw the man from the yellow painting sitting on the floor across from the door.

"I remember when I used to do this five nights a week," he said quietly. "She doesn't remember it because he didn't want her to see me, he thought I'd fall in love with her. That was his worst fear. That was the first time I'd ever seen her... I don't see how..." he fell silent, shifting the tablet between his hands. "But what am I saying, you've been traumatized for life. Here, do you need anything? I live right next door." The man rose to his feet. He was barely taller than Kyungsoo, his kind eyes meeting Kyungsoo's full of brightness and energy. The man offered Kyungsoo his hand. "Yixing," he said. "You were probably trying to get to me, but you got Kai instead."

" 's who I wanted anyway," Kyungsoo replied with a half-smile, taking the man's hand. Yixing was barely taller than him, his kind eyes making Kyungsoo feel immediatley calmer. "Look, I don't want to impose or anything, but I don't really want to bother Kai again either" —he was interrupted by Kai's voice thundering a SHUT UP! from within the apartment. Wincing, he continued, his heart in pain, "I don't really carry money with me—I just need to get to a cab, that's all, or even a subway, I guess..."

"Sure, you got it," Replied Yixing immediatley, putting a deft hand on Kyungsoo's shoulder as he fished his wallet out of his pocket, handing Kyungsoo a few bills. "Hey,—" Yixing stopped as Kyungsoo turned back at his words. "I'm a fan," Yixing said sheepishly. "I produce some music—you can't tell Baekhyun or Chanyoel, okay, I just... I don't know, I only know the art world, I don't really know the music world..."

Kyungsoo fidgeted uncomfortably. He was used to timid inquiries like this on a daily baisis, but he'd never actually answered one. If he really felt that someone could use his suggestion, he'd refer them to whatever manager or producer was with him, but alone—alone for miles—he felt small, and ineffective, like an ant walking among elephants. So he stumbled over his answer. "If—if you call... call my, um, my, my record company, actually, they'll ignore you, they'll be fucking... well, I'm actually under an awful company, but, um, if you tell them.... haaa." he sighed, trying to think of something Haein would notice as him. "If you tell them Kyungsoo said unto the breach, they should... well, you know how codes and shit go there... I'll call them up and make sure you get an audience." He finished shakily.

Yixing just looked at him calmly, dimpling in a grateful smile. "Thank you! I promise I'll work hard. I'll—" there was a female shriek from within Kai's apartment and Kyungsoo felt a string in his heat twang an unnatural note. Yixing winced, too. 

"Look, call him if he doesn't call you, will you? I can only help so much, he doesn't want my help with her," Yixing said as Kyungsoo stepped into the elevator.

Kyungsoo bit his lip. His favorite manager, Shanyuan, wasn't looking at him with any anger. None of them were. But the air crackled with something akin to judgement. Shanyuan sighed. "You know we can't delay your scedule to get you any rest," he said, his voice quiet and defeated. "And they're going to give you more the next few days to make up for it."

"Yeah," Replied Kyungsoo quietly. "Where am I sceduled to be?"

"You're in Seoul tomorrow, then Busan, then you're in Japan for a fanmeeting we sceduled a few months back and can't back out of, then you're back here to start shooting that new drama."

"Shows?" 

"Two a day." There was sympathy in Shanyuan's voice, and it was almost worse than if he'd yelled at Kyungsoo. Orders came from on high. Orders came from those heiresses, those chaebols, those website administrators who directed the masses into something resembling order. Shanyuan was the last person who would ever have any sort of power. Kyungsoo looked around the dorm they shared, mourning, all of a sudden, it's bareness. He'd had enough of bare surroundings lately.

He'd grown up in the warmest place—there had been plants everywhere, his mother had loved plants. When he'd started moving around more, he'd tried to bring plants with him, but they kept getting left here or there, some of the managers actively trying to make sure he lost them so they didn't get questions from the press about whether Kyungsoo was trying to make a case for climate change or if he just liked plants. 

He was suprised when he found his mind wandering to Kai's apartment, to plans of bringing him orchids and ferns. He'd be lucky if he didn't answer Kai to any of the questions he got during interviews, with the amount the artist was on his mind. 

That night, he wasn't thinking about music, or movies, like he ususally was. He didn't dream about his life in a fictional universe, like he usually did.

He thought about Kai, and he dreamed about Kai, and the softly glowing tan skin stretching across his cheekbones, and his fluffy bed-hair, and his soft lips, and his intense eyes, and his lithe abs, and tongue...

When he woke up, Shanyuan was out getting his wardrobe for the day, so Kyungsoo jumped when the doorbell rang. Kyungsoo personally knew the amount it took in bribes to even get to the level of his apartment, so his mind flew to saesangs, or horny chaebol heirsses, or anyone but—

Kai leaned against the doorframe in a soft grey band shirt and jeans, his hair fluffy, his eyes intense. "I've come to cordially invite you to my mother's garden party," he intoned, his voice low chimes that penetrated Kyungsoo.

"Hmm?" Kyungsoo blinked as if blinded. It hadn't even been twenty-four hours, but the reality of the artist still stunned him: his height, the way he stood, moved, watched the world.

"I know, you're suprised I have parents, but where do you think Jinah came from? I'm so, so sorry about that, by the way. My life, the shitshow. Anyway, this is really important, and you can totally decline, I would absolutely understand, I mean you didn't even want to see me ever again, but... I could use some backup... but it might get awkward, so..."

"You tracked me down to invite me to a dinner party?" Kyungsoo asked, trying not to laugh in Kai's very sincere, cute pouty face.

"A family dinner party," Kai corrected, standing up to his full height gracefully. "And no, I also came to let you know that she was right."

"Hm?" Kyungsoo didn't follow.

"I do need boys to art," Kai said with a sultry look, a sexy smile spreading slowly across his enticing lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: if you are here for Baekyeol/Chanbaek or Hunhan... mwahahahaha, I'll see you all next chapter. Also, please comment if you think I should make a Hunhan/Xiuhan spinoff of this lovely story :)


	5. King of Pop

"Oh, no." Kyungsoo backed into his apartment slowly, regarding this Kai with caution. Just a look from this Kai could send blood shooting to all the wrong places. "I do not live your life, I share this apartment with my manager who literally could be back any second with my clothes for the day." He faltered at the end of the sentence, realizing he was just egging Kai on. Sure enough, there was an electric spark in those bottomless orbs still staring at him.

"What, you don't have any clothes? I see too many already..."

"Kai, we have to talk about last time. I didn't think I was ever going to see you again, even though—" he cut himself short of saying I'm not surprised—while he was often cocky about this kind of thing he knew Kai could have anyone he wanted. Aphrodite came begging to his door. "We have to talk about that girl who said she was your wife—what was her name? Yellow-green girl."

"Jinah." Kai's gaze faltered but he came all the way into the room, closing the door behind him. In the short time they'd been apart Kyungsoo had forgotten how tall Kai was, and maybe it was just the way Kyungsoo saw him, but he seemed to fill up the room.

"I'm confused. You're her husband, but she wasn't surprised at all to see me there, but she seemed okay with it, but you two clearly aren't on the best of terms, and—" Kyungsoo had to take a step back at the force of Kai's kiss. He wanted to feel only exasperated, but one thing he hadn't forgotten was Kai's taste. He remembered his dream last night at the perfectly wrong time, and now the blood was really rushing.

The possibility of his manager returning at any given moment coupled with his evaporating but still present exasperation at Kai gave him enough strength to push Kai away a little and take another big step back, putting a solid few feet behind him. Kai pouted. 

"No. Don't pout. Speak. Use your words. You never told me what color your voice was, you know." Kyungsoo tried to keep his voice level but insistent.

"Jinah is so private that you could know me better than I know myself and you still wouldn't have to know anything about her," Kai replied quietly, and seriously, as if his answer made sense and would sate Kyungsoo's appetite for conversation. 

Kyungsoo shook his head. "No, I—I want to know. If you don't come back to me I'm going to come back to you at some point and I don't want to go on not knowing anything about each other—"

"Why?" Kai cut him off.

"Well, because we didn't meet in a club! Because you weren't really a booty call, because I bought your painting and because you painted it for me, because I saw Yixing in the hallway outside your apartment listening to you two fight and because you haven't seen the look on his face while he sits there. Because your skull is so thick or—or diluted or—overstimulated with colors or whatever that you can't even tell yourself why you're really here! Because I met you in a garage spray painting—"

Kyungsoo made a little noise as Kai kissed him again this time unable to control his long, tan arms as they wrapped around him and pulled him close like Kai was trying to fuse them. But Kyungsoo was already flushed enough and he wasn't finished talking. He broke away but didn't move out from the circle of Kai's arms. Being there, strangely, despite what Kai did to him, calmed his nerves.

"I wasn't done talking," Kyungsoo insisted. "Because you don't just kiss a booty call like that. Why did she call you Jongin?"

"You're a romantic motherfucker," Kai said, his voice sweet and caressing, his eyes turning into adoring little half-moons. "It's comforting to know that if I don't follow you around you'll follow me. I feel like we're dancing."

"And you are very eloquent but also really skilled at avoiding the question." But Kyungsoo felt something in the air, some kind of resistance, some unsurmountable reluctance on Kai's part that made him understand, in his heart, that Kai really couldn't tell him anything and couldn't explain anything. He fell silent, his mind running over what he'd just said. Most of it had been in the moment, meant simply to extract information from the tall man embracing him. But none of it was false, and Kyungsoo realized that even though Kai had wordlessly said he couldn't tell Kyungsoo everything, Kyungsoo didn't care. Better, Kyungsoo cared so much that he understood that what was best right now was for Kai not to tell.

When he looked up he noticed Kai watching each twitch of his face like it held the secret to immortality. "My—my manager really will be back any minute," he said, his voice not totally different—quiet and a little apologetic.

To Kai, it was a silky lavender blanket that welcomed him into its warmth as it simultaneously ushered him out the door. He thought a moment, his eyes flicking from the door to Kyungsoo to the bedroom and back.

"Too bad," Kai said, the glint back in his eye. Kyungsoo found himself lifted off the floor and carried into the bedroom. 

"Kai-ah!" Kyungsoo whined a little when he was deposited on the bed, but soon had to choke down his words as Kai undid his zipper and had his pants around his ankles in a moment. 

"I know," came Kai's rumbling voice from between his legs, "but let's make it a race, okay? Who comes first, the manager or Kyungsoo?"

Kyungsoo nearly came then and there, watching Kai bite his lip and listening to him say his name like it was something holy.

"Thanks for having me!" Kyungsoo smiled even though he knew the listeners to the radio couldn't hear him. He genuinley liked Taemin, and admired the superstar's ability to switch between artistry and commerciality. It was a valuable skill. If Kyungsoo was the king of ballads, Taemin was the king of pop, and he bore the cross eloquently and with a big, pixie smile on his face that made it hard not to like him. It was the first time they'd been together for an interview before, but Kyungsoo had been happy when he found out Taemin was the special MC for the radio interview he was doing that morning. 

"We hope you come back!" Taemin said brightly, the fingers on his hand counting down 4, 3, 2, 1, and then they were off air. Something in the star's mannerisms or the way he looked at the world reminded Kyungsoo of Kai. 

Kyungsoo made a mental note. He'd last seen Kai yesterday morning, and he was fairly sure he was beginning to think of him with increasing frequency. Perhaps by the time they saw each other again he would genuinely be able to say that Kai was all he ever thought about. Then Kyungsoo felt disgusted with himself, that his mind was capable of being so cheesy. He deduced it must be Taemin's presence, and the particular mood one had to be in for this sort of radio interview.

Taemin was saying something. "Hey, if you're tired of hotels you can totally crash at my place tonight after your concert," he offered, getting up from the table and stretching, his hands barely missing knocking over a mic. "I know for me it's nice when there's a little touch of someone where I sleep. I even slept at a fan's house once. I don't suggest it, though. I think I gained ten pounds in one night and it took like a month to get my abs back. Sad for everyone involved, I think, except that one fan."

Kyungsoo chuckled. "That sounds like a personal problem," he joked, rubbing his tummy. Advantages of being the king of ballads: have a dreamy face and people usually spend their time distracted from their body. Unless they're Kai. There, see, the frequency was increasing.

"I'll give your manager the address, okay? And the combination for the lock, because I'll probably be in the recording studio and won't hear you."

"No shit—you have a recording studio in you apartment?"

Taemin giggled. "I'm sure you've got enough money by now. It's really nice, to be honest—my work is just a few steps away. So the month of the year I'm home, I'm, you know—home most of the time."

Kyungsoo's manager butted in. "Do, we've got a costume fitting in half an hour and I"m not sure where it is—"

"Yep, coming." Kyungsoo shook Taemin's hand and followed his manager out like the obedient show pony he was. He did, after all, have a show that night. While he wasn't like Taemin—he was perfectly okay sleeping in hotels—he figured a change of scene wouldn't be so bad. Taemin would at least maybe make him some dinner. The notion entered his mind that Taemin might be looking for something more than some company that night, but he'd gotten used to assuming that wasn't the case.

He arrived at Taemin's house unsure of whether it was nighttime or morning; whichever it was, it was late, but one light glowed bright and inviting in Taemin's building and he left his managers looking worried with a distinct saesang look in their eyes, like they might hang around the building a little longer than was necessary. 

Taemin opened the door with a wide, friendly smile, looking as awake as if it was the middle of the morning. He had pasta almost ready— "It's all I know how to make," he apologized. But it smelled amazing and Kyungsoo tiredly found his way to the bathroom to actually change out of his stage clothes this time and take off his makeup. Looking at the nice clean shower he decided that he might as well clean everything.

When he finally came out of the steamy bathroom, hair wet but clean, a nice meal waited for him on Taemin's small table clearly meant for only two—maybe three—and Taemin had already eaten hours before. Now he made his way idly through some chips, watching Kyungsoo eat with quiet eyes. 

Kyungsoo wasn't paying much attention to anything as he ate, and he surely wasn't concerned that Taemin was right next to him—he might be okay kissing Taemin for the sake of this variety show or that, although Taemin wasn't his type and was probably straight anyway. Celebrities quickly shirked the idea of personal space or personal anything besides integrity and music, and maybe fans. Kyungsoo was very protective of his fans.

When his bowl was empty, he leaned back with a sigh. Taemin's apartment looked a lot like the one he shared with his manager—sparse, unlived in, but tastefully decorated. Whoever had decorated Taemin's apartment had really liked the color green. Kyungsoo asked about it.

"Apparently it goes with my voice," Taemin said absently suprised at the question. Kyungsoo just hummed, not particularly caring that the answer didn't make a whole lot of sense. The dark green curtains and fake plants and green accents on everything made the apartment seem like some kind of wooden forest.

"I think I'll just go to bed, if you don't need my company terribly," Kyungsoo murmured, his shoulder digging a little into Taemin's. 

"You're all digested and everything?" Taemin asked. Kyungsoo smiled; technically, Taemin was younger than him, but he was clearly trying his best to be a good host.

"We should do a song together sometime," Kyungsoo offered. "But yeah. What you can cook, you can cook, you get me?"

"And you don't want to..." Kyungsoo realized Taemin's hand was resting comfortably on his thigh, but his upper thigh, and for a moment his tired mind was surprised that he'd pegged Taemin wrong. Instantly he thought of Kai. Taemin really wasn't his type—he was sweet, but he reminded Kyungsoo of some kind of emo pixie sometimes, and besides, Kyungsoo was just... tired.

"I'm just tired," he said, not filtering himself. Taemin looked a little disappointed, but rose and took Kyungsoo's plate into the kitchen, turning off the quiet pop music that had been in the background. 

"Good night, then," was all the pop star said before disappearing into his room. Kyungsoo sighed and thought about Kai, spacing out while staring at a painting. He thought again about Jinah. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but wanted badly to speak to her again. She reminded him of an exotic tiger painfully aware that the world it lived in was fake but also aware that it wouldn't survive in the real wild. If he hadn't seen her fighting with Kai, he thought they might've been friends.

Then he really looked at the painting in front of him and his breath left him for a second as he recognized what it was. lush greens floated like star clusters around a mouth that was unmistakably Taemin's, but that wasn't what was surprising. The painting was absolutely Kai's. It had Kai written all over it. Actually, when Kyungsoo looked closer—it did Kai written on it, in pretty white script on the bottom corner.

*

"Oh my god, thank god, jesus fucking christ I swear I couldn't stand this city without you," Jinah collapsed into the coffee shop booth across from Luhan with a huff. 

"That bad? It's been so long I'd have thought he'd at least have been cordial to you your fist night." Luhan frowned.

"Worse than bad—he had someone over, if you know what I mean." Jinah sighed. "I mean, I know boys are pretty, trust me I know, but it wasn't some nobody. I don't know if I should tell you. You know plenty of celebrities."

"Not really. Soccer isn't the kind of industry that crosses into many others very often," replied Luhan. "I finally met your little accomplice, though—he's nicer than you said he was. Prettier, too. Since you said Kai had someone else, you think he's tired of Sehun or something?"

"That would defeat our whole purpose in that whole enterprise. And I know he's nice. I'm a great judge of character. Kai can be picky, so you have to throw an angel at him for him to bite." JInah pouted. 

"Why? You have more money than you could possibly spend in a lifetime, even if you tried. If you wanted to make the guy bankrupt you would have gone about it differently, but we both know you're not mean enough for that. And you're his wife—I still don't understand why you couldn't just ask for money directly."

"He would probably cut me off, I don't know." Jinah quieted as the waiter came to collect their order and then sighed. She looked even skinnier than the last time Luhan had seen her, but he had a purpose and he was torn between that and worry for his friend.

"Jinah, do you want to live here? I'm sure you could arrange something where you didn't have to see him."

"He specifically insisted that I live somewhere different. It's all he's really asked of me, however much we've fought."

"But Sehun, he doesn't have to live here?"

"Why?" Jinah narrowed her eyes, catching wind of something going on beneath Luhan's concern.

Luhan shrugged. "Like I said, I met him at one of Kai's exhibitions."

"And?" Jinah had a knowing glint in her eye and it made Luhan uncomfortable. When Luhan didn't say anything she took it as a confirmation of her suspicions. "Seriously. He's not even that hot!"

Luhan raised an incredulous eyebrow.

Kyungsoo stared with wide eyes at the unlikely couple sitting inside the coffee shop. He knew that Taemin's apartment building was popular among the semi-famous and all-out famous, but he knew after some googling that Jinah was only known but cult bloggers who knew the names of most of the models the country. Never would he have expected to see Luhan the soccer player having a calm breakfast with The Kai's wife. 

He'd only wanted to find some coffee for Taemin as some sign of gratitude for giving him a bed to sleep in. Now he stood, transfixed, as Luhan finally fished some money out of his wallet and embraced Jinah, stepping right into a sleek black car awaiting him on the curb. 

Jinah didn't look like she was going anywhere, so Kyungsoo impulsively stepped into the warm shop, the bell tinkling quietly. He got a few looks and had to sign one autograph, but otherwise everyone seemed involved in their own lives, in the bitterness of their morning coffee, the urgency of the words that scrolled across their phone screens, the newspaper, the tabloids—some about him, but him in real life—now, that was too extraordinary for a place that prided itself on ordinariness like this.

Jinah jumped when she heard her name, looking back at Kyungsoo with wide eyes. When she saw who it was, though, her eyes narrowed immediatley. "Do Kyungsoo."

"Hi. I was just—well, you won't believe it, I'm sure, but I was just in the neighborhood," Kyungsoo explained truthfully, sliding into the space Luhan had just vacated. The light fell on Jinah prettily, her hair looking reddish and her eyes sparkling a little. 

"Well, it's fine anyway." She looked him up and down. "It's a good thing you said hi to me, too. You were probably so freaked out last time we saw each other. I was really in a bad mood, though, so you'll have to excuse me. I know my husband is irresistable, I shouldn't fault you for—"

"Okay." Kyungsoo cut her off before she could continue. While Jinah's words were pessimistic, she spoke with a naïve lilt to her voice that Kyungsoo found off-putting. But she didn't really want to stop talking, and he wasn't really the sort of person who could ever interrupt. He'd been raised to be polite, and sometimes Kyungsoo swore it was the bane of his existence in this rude world.

"Do Kyungsoo, if you value your career, or your future, or anything, you won't see him again. I know he's a good lay—" Kyungsoo raised both eyebrows in suprise— "But he'll get tired of you. But by then you'll be too in love with him to do anything about it."

Kyungsoo frowned. "I don't think so," was all he said, quietly, his mind filling with Kai like it sometimes did. That golden skin could still blind him just when he thought about it. "But—if you don't mind—what happened? Between—between you and him?" Kyungsoo wasn't sure if he was overstepping his bounds here, but after what he'd seen in Kai's apartment, he figured if he was being rude, it was understandable. All the same, he was ready to apologize profusely when Jinah began to speak.

"I got better," she said, her voice breaking. "When we met—you know he's got synesthesia—anyway, that's not important." she seemed to be fishing around for somewhere to start. "I might as well just let you know that he discovered he hated my voice. My voice, apparently, is the ugliest thing ever. Just my presence—Do Kyungsoo, just my presence gave him a headache. At first I thought it was something that would go away, but it didn't. And then I found—no, you'll definitley know him, for all I know you were staying over at his house. Anyway, then I found another guy in his bed. He didn't even apologize, he just yelled at me to get out."

Jinah spoke like she was happy to unload all her bitterness onto someone else. It seemed to Kyungsoo a bad reason to divulge personal information. He thought it was a virtue to be able to keep pain hidden, and always felt proud when his fans happily played on the internet, pointing to how happy he seemed while he did three shows a night plus TV appearances. Chen thought he was crazy— you'll find someone someday, he'd said, who makes you want to tell them every single thought that enters your head. Telling them everything will be an impulse—like breathing.

Still, Kyungsoo selfishly ate up every piece of information he could get on the mysterious artist and knowing what he knew now, he just wanted to know more. It was clear Jinah now hated her husband.

"Who was it with? Did they keep dating, or something? It seems like the kind of situation niether of you could help," Kyungsoo said.

"King of Pop," replied Jinah, eyes flashing.

Kyungsoo remembered the painting on Taemin's wall. A gift. 

He suddenly felt un-special.

Kai had painted for someone else before. He'd painted for a singer before.

"I should go," he said abruptly. It was true; his phone was buzzing insistently and his manager was surely wondering where he was, worried he'd dissappeared like he had the other night.

Jinah grabbed his sleeve as he got up to go. Her eyes wobbled with something untold—or perhaps much untold. "So will you break up with him?" 

Kyungsoo realized that perhaps she hadn't just been unloading after all—maybe what she had told him had been exactly enough, just enough to turn Kyungsoo away. In his heart, he knew she should know better. She should know how unresistable Kai was. If only she knew often Kyungsoo thought of him, how much Kyungsoo felt his life revolved around him—she wouldn't even try.

Still, he felt sorry for her—after all, it didn't seem to him like she'd done anything wrong, just gotten cought in an awful situation. He took a stray piece of paper half-autographed out of his pocket and asked the wide-eyed waitress for a pen, jotting down his number.

"We'll see," he replied. "In the meantime, feel free to call me if you need anything. If you need a place to crash."

The waitress looked between them jealously, clearly forming all the wrong ideas about what was occurring but too scared to whip out her phone and record it like someone might have somewhere else.

Kyungsoo idly wondered if she saw Taemin in here often. If Kyungsoo accidentally caught female attention, Taemin caught it on purpose, and Kyungsoo still wasn't convinced that the pop star was into men exclusively. He exited the coffee shop unsure of whether talking ot Jinah had been a good idea at all—and realizing belatedly that he'd forgotten what he'd come for—that is, the coffee for Taemin.

The dancers wove mesmerizing patterns on the aged cobblestone, their delight infectious, infiltrating the crowd and bringing the whole waterfront into a wonderful crescendo of human happiness. It was Kai's favorite song here, and his favorite time of day; the sun hung low over the horizon, lighting the calm river on fire and silhouetting the handsome bridge that straddled the river. Every sort of person could enjoy this place: the shopkeepers who sold things for more reasons than money, the young couples who came to fall in love, the travelers who came to feel bigger than themselves—and the artists who came to remind themselves of the natural color of the world.

He stood in the archway a moment longer before entering the dancers smoothly, his chest rising and falling more quickly as he was swept up in the rhythm, a slow smile spreading across his face as he felt the heat of other people mingle with the breeze coming from across the river.

Suddenly, in the middle of the dance floor, Kai stopped short, surprised dumb by what he'd just thought. He loved coming here precisely because he never did think, so when Kyungsoo popped into his head he felt deeply moved, as if God himself had placed the wide-eyed singer into his mind at the very moment he hadn't expected it. He felt his life nudged in a slightly different direction just then, while the dancers swirling around him switched directions and began to step quickly to the next song.

Kai quickly made his way out of the crowd, part of him disappointed that he hadn't been able to stay away from Kyungsoo until the dinner party like he'd planned.

Planning was overrated.

When Kai finally caught a cab, he took an embarrassingly long time to search through Kyungsoo's schedule and figure out what city he was in—but the cab driver didn't care when he saw the sum of money offered to him from the shadowy backseat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: I wonder what Kai will think about what Kyungsoo has learned...
> 
> Please please leave comments! I read all of them :)
> 
> Also, let me know how much you all like the smut versus the drama--I genuinely don't know which one I'm better at and I live to please!


	6. Those Puppy-dog Eyes

Kyungsoo woke blearily to the sound of the doorbell chiming through his house. His foggy brain half-worried about saesangs, but he knew Taemin probably wouldn't wake up since the guy's room was at the opposite end of the apartment and he'd gone to bed after Kyungsoo, in the wee hours of the morning. That and he usually slept lightly in other people's houses.

He pulled on a shirt, mentally shrugging at his pajamas—at this kind of ungodly hour, pajamas expected. The floor was cold beneath his bare feet as he made his way through the silent, dark apartment to where light was spilling around the main doorway from the hallway.

What he saw through the peephole woke him all the way up. Kai leaned against the doorframe, his face quiet and unreadable, his hair styled back, his jaw practically cutting into his skin. He was wearing what seemed like a casual suit—a whole other level compared to what Kyungsoo had figured he usually wore around his apartment. His heart sank; how was Kai to know that Kyungsoo was staying there? There was only one explanation that made sense in this situation, and it had something to do with the painting on the wall of Taemin's room.

Perhaps Jinah had been lying about that particular thing. Perhaps Taemin wasn't any sort of 'ex'. But then why did Kai look so put together, yet... if Kyungsoo wasn't mistaken, he looked tired. Not surprising, it being the middle of the night, but still. It looked strangely on the face of the demigod Kyungsoo was used to dreaming of.

He opened the door quickly anyway, blinking and blind for a moment in the bright light of the hallway. Standing in front of Kai, Kyungsoo noticed his shoulders were stiff and his eyes were far away, slowly focusing on him.

"It's, um—it's a little late," Kyungsoo said in utter confusion. "Although I have to admit I wish I'd turned up at your house at three in the morning that put together."

"This isn't your house," Kai replied. His voice was gentle—Kyungsoo couldn't imagine Kai really being cruel, not ever—but it seemed carefully withdrawn a smokescreen layered between them. Now he was sure—sure he wasn't the one Kai had come to see.

"Well, it is for the night. My house. Singers travel a lot, you know? It's nice to have a home-cooked meal every once and a while. You'd be surprised, Kai. Most of us know each other."

Kai looked uneasy and unreadable.

Kyungsoo stepped back from the doorway and flicked on the light in the kitchen, putting a finger to his lips as Kai entered slowly, his eyes jumping here and there. Kyungsoo, still sleepy but remembering his conversation with Jinah yesterday, decided to see if she'd been telling the truth or if she'd just been totally self-interested.

"Try to be quiet though, your ex is sleeping." He heard his voice and hated its bitter note, moving to the refrigerator and unsurprised when he found only beer and orange juice. Ramen it was. He turned to find the pantry, passing from the kitchen into the dining room, but stopping suddenly when he saw Kai standing perfectly still staring at the wall.

Staring at his painting. The painting he'd painted for Taemin.

"How do you know that?" he asked quietly. There was a dangerous note to his voice, an aversion and caution that Kyungsoo had never heard before. Kai's hands were shoved deep in his pockets and a strand of hair had fallen in front of his hooded eyes.

"I actually talked to Jinah—saw her yesterday. But don't worry, I don't necessarily believe what she says. And I can respect—"

"Respect? I thought you weren't going to ask if I wasn't ready to tell." Kai interrupted.

"She really wanted to talk to me," replied Kyungsoo, mystified. "I know you two aren't on the best of terms, but—"

"Don't ever assume things about people. I don't know how much you're used to knowing about most people, but I'm—Kyungsoo, why are you staying in his house?" Kai bored into Kyungsoo's soul with insitent, fiery eyes, his jaw clenching.

"You're asking me? I don't have to explain myself! You're the one who showed up at god knows what hour—Look, I'm sorry, but Taemin offered and I stay in hotels every night. You wouldn't understand, but—"

"But how do you know that? You don't know that. You don't know what my life was like before I started selling my paintings." Kai took a step forward, a thought appearing on his face. "Did you—did you and Taemin—" he couldn't finish his sentence.

"No! Of course not! I don't see why you're so mad, I don't see... you're the one showing up at your ex-boyfriend's apartment early in the morning, I don't know what you could possibly be attacking me for—"

"Oh, please don't play innocent, you know I came for you." Kai shoved a hand through his hair, looking between Kyungsoo and the painting. Kyungsoo blinked, taking a step back. "I can't believe you talked to Jinah. What possessed you to do something like that? It's private. You wanna know my fucking past? Too fucking bad. All you had to do was wait." His voice was hard and his words flew through the air like knives. Kai paced the room once, Kyungsoo standing, still confused, in the archway. Then he recalled when they had planned to next meet—Kyungsoo was to meet Kai's parents. He'd brushed the concept off at first; the number of new people he met in a day must be record breaking—but now he considered that it might hold more weight to Kai than it did for him.

"She wanted to talk to me," Kyungsoo repeated. "I think you're overreacting. If you wanted to actually talk to me, that'd be fine, or let me know why you came here if clearly your only intention was to yell at me—"

"Have I raised my voice once?" Kai asked. "Why do you all always tell me I'm yelling? I'm just mad, Kyungsoo. I feel like my privacy's been invaded and I'm surprised you'd even assume I was here for Taemin."

Kai still couldn't avoid saying Kyugsoo's name with that special lilt, nor could he avoid watching Kyungsoo's mouth as he spoke. It was off-putting.

Kyungsoo knew why it seemed like Kai was yelling; he knew immediately. Every one of Kai's actions affected Kyungsoo intrinsically, so when Kai was mad every one of his words cut into Kyungsoo sharp and harsher than if Kai were yelling at the top of his voice. It was a colossal change from the extreme tenderness of Kai's normal personality. Then again, it was a similar sense of passion that Kai put into, say, sex.

But he'd thought that would be only him; only he and perhaps a few others he didn't know could feel like that, because of how he felt about Kai. "Are you talking about Jinah?" He asked, wondering if maybe some of Jinah's ferocity came from love for Kai.

"Everybody and Jinah! I know I'm the goddamn bad guy! But I can't change myself! I've tried! You can't possibly fathom how hard I have tried to be the kindest version of myself, but at some point the mind rebels. Just because no one understands doesn't mean they can't—I don't know—give me the fucking benefit of the doubt!"

Kai reached up and snatched the painting swiftly from the wall, shoving the window open and dropping the painting before Kyungsoo could rush forward to grip his arm with a "WaitI!" But the painting had already tumbled stories down and Kyungsoo couldn't even hear the sound it made when it hit the ground.

"I don't know why he still has the thing anyway," muttered Kai, watching the painting hit the ground before whirling and making his way to the door with long strides. The sounds of the city at night chased them through the dark apartment and into the bright hallway.

"Kai, you're not even letting me say anything!" Adrenaline pumped through Kyungsoo now and he felt his the tips of his ears getting hot. "I'm just trying to help you figure out why everyone sees you the way they do! You didn't even tell me why you came in the first place! Kai, if it was for Taemin, just tell me—"

"Nobody sees me," muttered Kai as he strode to the elevator. "That's the whole point of an anonymous artist's seclusion." He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button without making eye contact with Kyungsoo. It made Kyungsoo a little angry that even in the ugly elevator light, in the dew of early morning with no sleep, Kai's skin glowed tan and his eyes snapped like sharp flashes of God.

Somehow Kyungsoo felt more in that moment as he watched the elevator doors slide closed that he had committed some kind of supreme sin; like something precious and ethereal was slipping out of his hands forever. It couldn't be defined by his concept of love, or friendship, or lust—it could only manifest itself in his name.

_Kai._

When Kai had disappeared from view, the lights seemed a little less bright in the hallway and Taemin's apartment didn't seem friendly anymore. All Kyungsoo could look at was the empty spot on the wall, and all he could see were shadows lurking menacingly from the corners of the room.

He couldn't up and leave; he was aware that that painting was worth a fortune and Taemin deserved at least some sort of explanation.

Kyungsoo took out his phone with a shaking hand. His heart hadn't yet sped down and he felt completely at odds with the sleeping apartment now, like he was being suffocated by the night.

"Hello?" The voice was sleepy and sounded like the low meow of a tired lion. Kyungsoo thanked the heavens that his friend had picked up.

"Chanyeol?" Kyungsoo's own voice was a stranger to him, quiet and uneven—even trembling.

"What's wrong?" Chanyeol sensed a problem before Kyungsoo even said anything else.

"I—I don't know—It's hard to explain, um—" Kyungsoo realized that while he may have had the right idea in calling Chanyeol, he was unintelligible at this point.

"Where are you?" Came the low voice on the other side of the line. When Kyungsoo replied, Chanyeol sighed.

"It takes at least seven hours to get there by car," he said, frustrated. "I couldn't get there soon even if I jetted. Why don't you put me on speaker and tell the window what happened." Chanyeol had figured out that Kyungsoo had trouble speaking candidly to people early on in their friendship, but figured out that when he was in front of a whole city he was just fine. Chanyeol attributed it to Kyungsoo's comfort with large crowds but uneasiness one-on-one.

Kyungsoo did just as Chanyoel instructed, putting the phone down on the table next to his bed and walking over to the window, his own reflection very faint and overpowered by the lights of the city. They were so bright that they lit the clouds above the city a quiet orange, so Kyungsoo told his problems to the sky.

"Taemin is Kai's ex, but I didn't know that when I agreed to stay over—not that kind of stay over—and he had one of Kai's paintings, just hanging out in his living room. He didn't even say anything about it, although I don't know why he did, since he probably doesn't even know I know Kai. But we had a fight and long story short Taemin's million-dollar painting is on the street definitely destroyed."

Chanyeol cackled in reply but Kyungsoo just smiled, used to it. Once Chanyeol calmed down, he seemed to think a moment before speaking. "Well, it's a clusterfuck," he said, stating the obvious. "But I think the only way Taemin will have any reason to forgive you—or not get mad at you in the first place—is for you to make up with Kai. How did you manage to get in a fight with him, anyway? I didn't think you two were dating."

"People who aren't dating can fight," replied Kyungsoo to the orange sky.

"Hmmm." there was a rustling on the other side of the line and it occurred to Kyungsoo that Chanyeol might not be alone.

"Is someone with you?" He asked. "I really—I don't want to go around blabbing secrets about Kai to everybody—most people don't even know what he looks like—"

"Don't worry about it," Chanyeol said in a low voice. "Baekhyun's crashing on the floor for the night because we finished work too late for it to make sense for him to go home. He's just a loud sleeper. I promise he's out like a babe. Not even the phone ringing can wake him. Listen—I'll try to get there as quickly as possible, okay? Try to get some sleep, and not get murdered by a small perfectly-formed pop star, and I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning."

Kyungsoo nodded and then realized Chanyeol couldn't hear him. "Okay. See ya." Chanyeol hung up promptly and Kyungsoo paced the room, waiting for morning.

He woke to streaming sun and an empty stomach. The apartment was eerily silent, frozen in place like a 3D picture. Briefly he considered calling Chanyeol again, but he'd already woken him in the middle of the night and Kyungsoo hated to be a bother. So, once he was dressed and ready to face whatever Taemin's reaction would be, he cracked open the door.

More silence greeted him. Kyungsoo liked to believe that he had pretty good hearing despite the volume of some of the crowds he sang for, but he didn't get that feeling that someone else was breathing nearby. All the windows were closed, and the only air circulating was the languid heat escaping from the vents on the floor.

Kyungsoo let out a breath. He'd call Taemin later, maybe, and try to explain. For the moment he could just make his bed and go downstairs to start his schedule. He felt guilty, not for anything in particular but just in general—like he'd been dunked in a pool of guilt and now it was taking its time as it made its way to the center of his body.

The lobby was bright and shiny glass like all the cool lobbys were, designed to prick the eyes and dazzle everyone into believing the sun was everywhere. Kyungsoo began to make his way through the small clusters of couches towards the mesmerizing revolving doors until something caught his eye.

It was, after all, hard to miss. Kai had chosen the couch in the very center of the room to stretch his length across and fall asleep, the sun falling slantwise against his face, an arm thrown across his eyes, his chest rising and falling gently.

Kyungsoo even considered not waking him up, just because he seemed to go so well with the room, like a sculpture or an art exhibit which had been intentional in the architecture. The piece of of his chest that was visible shone tan in the sunlight and his jacket was crumpled beneath him.

Kyungsoo shook him timidly at first, with no response at all. Up close, Kyungsoo was even more reluctant, enchanted by Kai's lips hanging slightly open as breath passed between them. Shaking him again didn't work either.

It was beginning to be exasperating. Finally Kyungsoo reached across the artist and flipped him over so he hit the rug on the floor with a loud thump.

Finally, Kai's eyes cracked open, slightly puffy and squinting in the bright light.

 

To Kai, it was like waking up in heaven with an angel looking down at you with impossibly wide eyes, surrounded by a mirage of light.

 

" _Kyungsoo_ ," breathed Kai as if the name naturally rested on his tongue all the time. He sat up on the floor, resting his back against the couch and running a hand through his hair. No need to shoot a commercial, Kyungsoo thought resentfully. You're just waking up.

"Why are you still here? You left so mad," Kyungsoo said quietly, sitting on the coffee table so he was looking down at Kai awkwardly.

"I cool down very quickly," replied Kai sheepishly. "I made it to the end of the elevator ride before realizing that I drove all night to see you, not to ruin your life by framing you for robbing a prominent pop star."

"What, Taemin? Don't worry about it," Kyungsoo said.

"And you really shouldn't worry about it," Kai replied. "I caught Taemin on his way out and straightened everything out. He gets a free painting that's probably worth more than the other one anyway, so he's happy enough. He's always happy," Kai said with a little smile. Kyungsoo felt a stab of jealousy shoot through him.

"Okay, so you talked to Taemin and then fell asleep on the couch in the middle of the lobby?"

"I wanted you to see me," Kai replied, grinning. "But can sleep anywhere, anytime. Also—" Kai rose gracefully to Kyungsoo's eye level, perching on the edge of the couch. "Your voice looks beautiful in this light."

The look in Kai's eyes had done a 180 since last night. Now it was intent but achingly tender and loving, and Kyungsoo suspected Kai was making an effort not to go all-out puppy dog eyes. "I'm sorry about last night," Kai said quietly. "I was really, really tired. It's a much uglier kind of meltdown than if I had just passed out in front of your door. But then Taemin might have found me and he's not the one I want." Now Kyungsoo was sure he was being seduced, and he wasn't inclined to care, letting his mouth fall open a little bit. Kai was just talking, but he was doing so much more with his tone of voice and the look in his eyes.

"If it were anyone else I would be so mad right now," muttered Kyungsoo to himself, but Kai heard him and a grin exploded onto his face. And Kyungsoo remembered that in Kai's apartment he had promised himself that he would try to make Kai smile as much as possible—for selfish reasons.

"I have to go," Kyungsoo said, enraptured, in response to the wordless invitation written between the lines of everything Kai did.

"You're really not mad at me?" Kai asked, eyes dancing.

"I'm really not. I shouldn't have talked to Jinah before talking to you." Kyungsoo remembered what Kai had said last night. 'You wanna know my fucking past? Too fucking bad. All you had to do was wait.' "I'm usually a more patient person. I should have waited until the dinner party."

Kai opened his mouth to say something, but then decided against it, instead latching onto Kyungsoo's lips in a heated kiss that immediately made Kyungsoo's blood boil. Kyungsoo broke away. "You are in public," he chided, the politeness in him rejecting the whole business.

Kai pouted, making full-blowm puppy dog eyes. Kyungsoo averted his eyes, but not in time. "Oh, please don't with the puppy dog face. I really have to go. I have a fan meeting in like—" he looked at his phone— "An hour."

Silence greeted him until Kyungsoo finally gave in and looked at Kai, whose heart-melting expression hadn't changed. "How old are you?" Kyungsoo asked, exasperated, his willpower quickly leaving him.

"Twenty-two," Kai replied, rising in one swift motion and pulling Kyungsoo up with him by the hand.

"More like just two," Kyungsoo growled as Kai led him towards the door. "I'm a couple years older than you, you know. Some respect is due."

Kai whirled to face Kyungsoo with a naughty glint in his eye. "I'm just here to follow you around, ajussi," he said. Kyungsoo was about to reply something snide when he saw his van parked outside with his manager leaning against the hood, staring straight at them. Kyungsoo wasn't worried he'd think it was Taemin he was with—Taemin was significantly shorter than Kai. But Kai had a hand resting lightly on his ass and he still felt the judgment seeping through the glass.

Kyungsoo escaped Kai's shadow and began to make his way towards the car, acutely aware that Kai was following him so closely they might as well have been glued together. Kai's hand didn't leave his ass, but instead began stroking his back maddeningly.

When they arrived at the van Kyungsoo expected Kai to step away, but instead, Kai shyly and politely introduced himself to the manager and followed Kyungsoo into the van. Kyungsoo gave him a wide-eye, what-are-you-doing stare but was only met with raised eyebrows.

Kyungsoo expected Kai to keep being all Kai-ish in the car, but instead he became fascinated with the city around them, putting earbuds in his ears and watching as the world passed by. Kyungsoo was content to keep quiet and watch Kai watch the world. The things Kai made were so exquisite that Kyungsoo was surprised that Kai could still be so fascinated with a harried-looking mother crossing the street with her son hanging onto her coattails, and a window-washer on break a few feet above the street having a smoke. Kai drank it all in.

When they reached the venue, Kai attached himself to Kyungsoo just like he had before, except this time Kyungsoo caught a certain aspect of stiffness in the way he moved. He remembered the white and grey apartment that Kai spent most of his time in and then at the crowd of sounds and colors of fans crowding in lines enforced by policemen, whistles, alarms, screams, and the scuffle of getting him ready backstage.

"In here," he said quietly in Kai's ear, leading him into his waiting room. Kai looked a little pale and took a moment to compose himself. "Are you okay?" Kyungsoo asked, worried.

"Overstimulation is really random," was all Kai replied. The color had returned swiftly to his face and he cast a sweeping glance over the small room. It was hastily constructed with walls of plastic tarp, and anyone who cared to eavesdrop would surely have an easy time of it. "When do you have to go out?"

"I think it started a few minutes ago, but with all the stuff that happens before I actually go out, it'll probably be an hour." Kyungsoo said, purpose behind his words that Kai immediately picked up on, perking up.

"Hmmmm." Kai flicked the lock on the door and began to advance towards Kyungsoo. "A whole hour, just for me." He was suddenly standing flush with Kyunsoo, one hand on Kyungsoo's ass and the other stroking his back. Kyungsoo felt his heart constrict and he wondered if he would ever get used to looking at Kai.

He kissed Kai first, needy, tugging him closer and closer by the nape of his neck until the back of his knees hit the couch and he turned so that he could straddle Kai. Kai went right along, getting distracted briefly by Kyungsoo's jawline before making his way back to his mouth.

Kyungsoo pulled Kai's shirt off and Kai sat back to let Kyungsoo admire him with hooded eyes. "Do you forgive me, then?" Kai asked, staring Kyungsoo right in the eyes and letting his swollen lips hang a little open. Kyungsoo replied by moving his roaming hands to palm Kai's crotch, biting his lip and leaning forward so that their noses brushed and their breath mingled.

Kai arched into his hand, his stomach rippling with muscles. Instead of kissing him agian, Kyungsoo undid Kai's belt and got down from his lap, kneeling on the floor in front of Kai and looking up at him with big eyes, his mouth hovering in front of Kai's hard length.

"Do you forgive me, then?" He asked, licking his lips. Kai could only breathe with an open mouth, eye-fucking Kyungsoo already, his hand stilling in Kyungsoo's hair. Without waiting for an answer, Kyungsoo took Kai into his mouth slowly, letting his tongue swirl maddeningly around the length. Kai gripped his hair with a low hiss, clearly trying to refrain from bucking up into Kyungso's mouth.

Once Kyungsoo got into it Kai had to throw his head back, distracting Kyungsoo from what he was doing with his jawline. So Kyungsoo moved his mouth upwards and began sucking along Kai's jaw, just as he pleased. "Fuck, Kyungsoo," Kai growled right into his ear, "You are ridiculously good at that."

Kyungsoo nipped Kai's lower lip. "Have you seen my lips?" He asked, his lip brushing against Kai's with each vowel he made.

"Your lips might just be my favorite thing on earth," Kai replied into Kyungsoo's mouth. "They let escape the most beautiful color I've ever seen."

Kai had had enough teasing. Kyungsoo was judiciously flipped onto his back on the couch and Kai swiftly removed his shirt and his belt, grinding a little against Kyungsoo. Soon Kyungsoo's pants and boxers were gone too and Kyungsoo leaned slightly off the couch to grope for his bag while Kai made marks along his collarbone and shoulder. Kyungsoo swatted him lightly, mumbling something about more makeup being necesary to be presentable today. Kai giggled a little bit, sending vibrations through Kyungsoo's chest right to his heart.

Kai grinned when he Kyungsoo produced a bottle of lube, prepping Kyungsoo quickly, distracted by kissing. Kyungsoo could kiss Kai forever and ever and ever and ever; he let his hands wander across Kai's broad, smooth back and across his tight stomach and through his slightly greasy hair.

When he felt Kai at his entrance he kissed him harder, trying to pull him closer with his hands on Kai's ass. Kai entered slowly with a low groan, not stilling his lips as he waited a few moments before deciding he couldn't wait anymore and beginning to move slowly in Kyungsoo as Kyungsoo clenched around him, biting hard on Kai's lip and eliciting a low moan.

Kai found Kyungsoo's sweet spot almost immediately, setting a punishing pace as Kyungsoo felt the tension growing in his gut—

 

"What does sex with me look like?" Kyungsoo asked, curled against the hot, tan skin of the reclined figure next to him.

"What does it look like?" Kai repeated the question, leaning his head against the back of the couch, his adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed, trying to craft a sufficiently eloquent response. "It looks like... well, sex can look like all sorts of different things—it depends. It looks sexy, for one." This got a little laugh out of Kyungsoo, and Kai smiled, sliding his eyes towards him. "But I think I can safely say that your sexy voice is as dangerous as sex with you itself. It looks like what I'd imagine heaven to be, if God understands that kind of excited—excited, fervent bliss."

"Hmm, you should be a poet," Kyungsoo said quietly. "Or you could write songs for me." He'd only half been listening, mostly just appreciating the lilt of Kai's tender voice as it reached his ears and as new words rumbled from his chest simultaneously, which Kyungsoo could feel because the were pressed so closely together.

Kyungsoo eventually rose to pull his pants back on and then his shirt. Kai stayed motionless, naked. "Wait, don't move," said Kyungsoo, unnecessarily, as he grabbed his phone and stood over Kai, making sure not to block the light. "You just didn't leave any cheekbone to the rest of the world, did you," he teased as he snapped a picture of Kai's upturned face, eyes closed and light playing across the contours of his face.

"Shhh, I'm having one of those—those moments when you feel deeper than you could possibly really be," Kai said, not opening his eyes. "Damn, I am going to paint for hours tonight. It's gonna be lit."

"That's lovely," responded Kyungsoo condescendingly. "Please be sure to clothe yourself at some point; while I enjoy the view others might be surprised at what I keep in my dressing room. _Artists_ ," he mumbled as he cracked the door open just enough to squeeze out into the hustle and bustle of the life he knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: makeup sex is always the best, sorry to leave y'all hanging! Maybe I'll... fill some details in later. But I really wanted to get this chapter finished. I hope everyone is excited to see what happens next with Jinah and the dinner party :)
> 
> Please please leave comments and let me know what you think!


	7. The Crescendo

"Kai! Jesus!" Sehun didn't cover his eyes but quickly shut the door as he entered the small waiting room. Kai jumped, stifling a yawn. He must have fallen asleep before remembering to put clothes on.

"The fuck are you doing here?" He asked, his voice sleepy and scratchy. "The fuck are you doing... here?" At a Do Kyungsoo concert?

"I'm saving you from sure embarrassment. You're lucky it was me coming through that door and not, like, anyone else." Sehun cocked a hip and rose a judging eyebrow.

"I thought you ran away with that... with that..." Kai gestured weakly with his hand, his mind sleepy and blank. With his other hand he pulled a blanket over his lap so that Sehun might look him in the eyes.

"Soccer player?" Sehun supplied.

"Yeah. That soccer player. Luhan."

"Regardless, you ran away with a singer. I'm hurt, you didn't even call." Sehun pouted, sitting on top of the vanity and letting his legs fall wide open. 

"I wasn't aware you wanted one. I didn't even know your number was in my phone. I never call you." Kai frowned. 

"You never call anyone. Your phone is blank. But you should. Unlike yourself, some people like hearing the sound of people's voices over the phone."

Kai shuddered. "It's creepy. It's all basically the same color. I can't recognize anyone over the phone. Really, though, what are you doing here? How did you find me in the first place?"

"I knew it would be Do Kyungsoo." Sehun leaned back on the vanity, a slice of his belly showing below his shirt. "He's totally your type. You only like me because I'm pretty enough to be anybody's type."

"Awfully presumptuous of you," Replied Kai, gathering his energy and finally rising to hunt for his clothes, dressing in choppy, cramped movements. "Do you know when Kyungsoo'll be done with his show?"

Sehun shrugged. "It sounded like he was getting towards the end of his bit when I ducked backstage. So you don't have to get dressed, if you didn't want to. It might be a moot point."

"Seriously, is there anything else you think of?" Kai asked, laughing in spite of himself.

"There is, actually." Sehun closed his legs and stood up, his mouth becoming impossibly small as he put on his serious face. "I think I might have a job offer, something that could really support me, something normal-ish. So I could stop relying on you like you're my sugar daddy or something."

Kai wrinkled his nose. "What is it?"

There was a breath of air and a surge of noise from the other side of the room and then it was all sucked up again as Kyungsoo entered the room while simultaneously trying to get his jacket off. He'd taken his belt all the way off before he noticed the two grown men staring at him with wide eyes from the other side of the room.

"Do you always strip right after a fanmeeting, or was that just for me?" Asked Kai in genuine confusion. 

"I—It's..hot out there," Kyungsoo said shakily, eyeing Sehun with suspicion. "Do Kyungsoo," he said finally, offering his hand to Sehun.

"Oh Sehun," Replied Sehun in a small voice. Kyungsoo made wide, meaningful eyes at Kai and pulled the artist into a corner so they could whisper without being overheard by Sehun.

"I don't want to fight again so soon, but..." he expected Kai to say something right away, but Kai just waited for him to finish with wide, sleep-laden eyes. "Did you happen to bring a past... you know... with you... while you were trying to get to me..."

"Oh!" Kai said finally, seeming to realize what Kyungsoo meant. "Oh, no. He just found me. I have no idea why he's here. I didn't invite him or anything, I genuinely thought he was off happily screwing a soccer player, but apparently he needs a favor."

Kyungsoo looked at Sehun out of the corner of his eye. The boy looked like he'd jumped straight of an anime series, dressed in a simple black turtleneck that hugged his chest and plain tan pants, high tops laying like great paddles from beneath them. It worried Kyungsoo that Sehun's feet were so big and the boy was already as tall as Kai.

"You know what," Kyungsoo said louder so that Sehun could hear, making his way over to the vanity and searching for a piece of paper. "I'm sure it's important. And I won't ask how you got a backstage pass, but—here. Let me give you the name of my hotel—" he was still searching for something useable as a writing utensil. The vanity was full of various forms of makeup Kyungsoo had no idea about, just that they somehow made their way onto his face and made his eyes look even bigger than they were. Finally he settled on something that looked like a pencil but wrote more like a crayon. 

"I'll give you the name of my hotel and the room number." he handed the slip of paper to Sehun. "They might ask you who you're there to see, just say you're looking for D.O. If we're not at the hotel they'll know where we are. Okay?" 

Sehun looked from Kyungsoo to Kai incredulously. Then he focused on Kai, raising his eyebrows in a silent question. Really? This guy? But it seemed like Kai was just doing his best to hold in laughter. "Thanks," Sehun said finally, awkwardly. He shoved the paper and slid past Kyungsoo, taking his time to sidle past Kai as he left.

The moment the door passed Kai moved over and hit Kyungsoo in the arm, trying to laugh quietly, his face scrunching up adorably. "What?" Kyungsoo asked. "What?"

"It might have been more subtle to pee on me to mark your territory," Kai responded. This time Kyungsoo hit Kai.

Sehun was waiting for them when they got to Kyungsoo's hotel, sitting in the middle of the lobby and spreadeagled across a couch, reminding Kyungsoo of how he'd found Kai that morning. In fact, it was all eerily similar; even the lobby looked much the same, its appetite for glass and shiny things apparently inexhaustible.

Kai giggled a little upon seeing him, striding toward him on light feet to surprise him with a quick pinch of his shoulders. Kyungsoo hung by the door, watching them quietly. Sehun rose right away upon being greeted, his hand lingering on the small of Kai's back and leaning in to speak to him. Kai's hand wandered down to Sehun's ass as he concentrated on what Sehun was telling him. He seemed to decide that whatever Sehun had asked him required a while to explain, so he turned and looked for Kyungsoo, surprised when he saw the singer so far away, motioning him over.

"Would it be okay if we went up to your room for awhile?" Kai asked, blinking innocently. 

Kyungsoo looked between them incredulously. "Alone?" 

Kai sputtered. "No! With you! Look how skinny he is!" Kai's hand went to Sehun's stomach. It was true; Sehun looked almost two dimensional. "I figured we could feed him while we talk."

"Fine," replied Kyungsoo shortly, leading them to the elevator. Kai leaned against the back of the elevator next to Kyungsoo while Sehun stood in front of them, facing the door. Kai looked at Kyungsoo meaningfully, then away, then back at Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo looked at him with questioning eyes. Kai repeated the motion and this time Kyungsoo followed his line of sight to Sehun's ass. To be fair, he probably stared it for too long, but it was, objectively, a nice ass. When he looked back up at Kai, the artist was grinning with raised eyebrows and Kyungsoo had to roll his eyes. 

When they got to the room, Kyungsoo situated the two tall men at the little breakfast nook and went about scrounging up leftovers he'd kept in the mini fridge.

"So, I'm confused," Kai began. "Are you saying that sleeping with me might have actually led to a job?"

"Not that directly," came the rumble of Sehun's voice. "It's in sports, not art, which is similar but not very. It's managing."

"Nice and out of the spotlight, just like you like," murmured Kai.

"Well, except I don't really know anything about it, and I'm very young. Who manages your stuff? Is it Yixing? I always thought it was him, since he's always hanging around everywhere, but I thought he might also just be a friend."

"Do you want me to hook you up with him? I don't mean... I don't mean hook you up, but he handles all of my paintings. My job's just to paint them." There was a creak as Kai leaned back in his seat. "I'm sure he'd give you a reference, if you wanted."

Sehun snorted. "For what, exactly?"

There was silence for a moment as Kai thought, but then Sehun chuckled. "That's fine, I'll just milk you for all you know and then get out of your hair."

"Well." Kai sighed. "What do I know? He gives about a third of them to museum curators, who usually only keep a few of them and display even fewer. So some of the stuff on the market comes directly from those curators. But I don't see what kind of parallel that would have with sports. Then I think he gives a lot of them to auctioneers and professional buyer-and-seller people, I don't know what they're actually called. All of those ones go on the public market unless our go-between wants to keep the painting until it gains value. But that's delicate—and this might have bearing with sports—because they still want to promote the value of my stuff, so they can't keep it all. They actually have to sell the best ones. Whatever that means," added Kai, "I don't paint any of them with a particular value in mind. I don't paint them thinking, hmm, this one's going to be a masterpiece and this one's not."

"What about the other third?" Asked Sehun. 

"I don't know. Some of them probably go into Yixing's dungeon—" Kai got cut off as the microwave beeped, but then continued. "That is, the ones he really likes. Totally subjective. And the rest he sells himself to his own contacts and pockets all the money. It's the least I could do for him—he's put millions into my bank account."

Kyungsoo tried not to drop the bowl of noodles he was carrying to the table. Millions? Sure, he probably made millions, but all of that went to his company. Kyungsoo considered himself middle-class, financially. He tried to imagine what he would do with so much money, but not a single thing came to mind. Stop working? As many disadvantages there were in his business, there were parts that made it all worth it. 

Sehun and Kai got distracted the moment food was placed in front of them and were silent for a time. Kai paused halfway through his bowl. "Kyungsoo, you should sing something. I haven't heard you sing since—let me revise that, I haven't heard you sing live since... is it since the first time we met? That's way too long."

Kyungsoo was going to say no, but Kai was too cute—he was irresistible. "In between your soft hair," he began the first lines of Beautiful. Then he stopped short. "There's no music to it," he said, disappointed. "Plus, I just sang a full show."

But Kai was staring at him with a strange intensity, his food forgotten. Sehun was almost done. "What?" Kyungsoo asked sheepishly. 

"Come here," Kai replied, stretching out a petulant hand for Kyungsoo, who stood just out of reach. Kyungsoo couldn't possibly resist him, so he moved forward until Kai could grab his shirt and pull him onto his lap. Kai pulled him down right there for a deep, passionate kiss, letting a little bit of hidden fire be felt in the way he practically bruised Kyungsoo's lips.

"Damn, well I'll sing too if you'll kiss me like that," said Sehun, pouting and staring between them with a glint in his eye.

"Don't," Kai and Kyungsoo said at the same time, and the three of them smiled. It was hard for Kyungsoo to focus because Kai was squeezing the part of his ass that wasn't sitting on his lap. 

Kyungsoo got up before anything else happened and cleared the plates, carefully putting plastic wrap over Kai's unfinished noodles and putting them in the fridge. He was so intent on his task that he didn't realize Kai behind him until turned around and he was right there, giving Kyungsoo no space to move against the counter. Once Kai was sure he had Kyungsoo's attention he pressed another rough, wanting kiss on his lips, a continuation of the one Kyungsoo had cut off before.

Kyungsoo was totally pressed up against the counter, Kai standing in between his lets and running his hands up and down his back as they kissed. Kyungsoo felt his heart beating faster and faster as he was swept up in the passion of this man and his soft, insistent lips, and his seductive tongue and the feel of their bodies pressed together. Their kisses only became hotter, Kai nipping at Kyungsoo's upper lip and Kyungsoo licking Kai's lower lip and then running his tongue along Kai's lower set of teeth. 

A throat was cleared near them. "I'm still here, you know," Sehun said. Kai broke their lips half a centimeter, breathing in Kyungsoo, and for a moment, Kyungsoo thought he would be mad, but then, without moving from his place between Kyungsoo's legs, he reached out with a long arm and pulled Sehun in by the nape of his neck, giving him a deep kiss that probably tasted like Kyungsoo. 

Kyungsoo watched in open-mouthed astonishment. He was mostly hard and he could feel that Kai was, too, so he had no idea what the artist was trying to do until Kai stepped back and took a firm hold of both their wrists, dragging them towards the bedroom despite Sehun's protests that "I should really go, you sex fiend—". 

Letting them both go with a thump on the bed, he regarded them both with hooded sex eyes. "I have the two most beautiful people in the country, here," he said quietly, his voice raspy. Then he waited for one of them to say something.

Instead of saying something, Sehun turned to Kyungsoo with a raised eyebrow and kissed him. It wasn't as unapologetic as Kai's kisses were, and after a moment Sehun pulled back. "Yep," he said, turning to Kai. "I get it. I get it now." Kai had been watching them fixedly, but now he turned to the speaker on Kyungsoo's side table and began to put on music.

Sehun shrugged and turned back to Kyungsoo. "This is okay, righ—" Kyungsoo kissed him, if only because he wanted to feel whatever attraction Kai felt for Sehun. This must have been what Kai's look in the elevator meant. Sehun kissed with more than just his lips, his arms wrapping around Kyungsoo's waist and his hands finding their way to Kyungsoo's hair. 

Kyungsoo rolled Sehun over so the taller was straddling him and finally got to grip the ass he'd stared at in the elevator. A low, sexy beat had begun to play and Sehun grinded a little on top of him as he mouthed across Kyungsoo's jawline, his soft blonde hair falling across Kyungsoo's cheek and giving him goosebumps. Given the chance to breathe, Kyungsoo looked over Sehun's head for Kai, who, done with the music, was now simply watching.

Their eyes locked, and Kyungsoo felt Sehun on top of him but saw Kai, the electric connection between them sizzling and snapping until Kai's lips popped a little open and his hand went unconciously to his crotch. Kyungsoo's eyes followed, but Kai stopped himself, instead deciding to stand up an pull Sehun up for a kiss. While Sehun was up on his knees, Kyungsoo pressed into him from behind, sharing a little nip with Kai over Sehun's shoulder while palming Sehun, the three of them pressed together hotly, friction the goal.

Kyungsoo's fingers fumbled with the button on Sehun's pants for a moment before getting them down, letting his hand travel over Sehun's naked ass before traveling forward to grip Sehun's length briefly, drawing a groan from Sehun's mouth which was being dominated by Kai.

But Kyungsoo wanted Kai and he couldn't forget Kai's mouth if he tried. He reached between the two and his hand found its way into Kai's pants, gripping him as Kyungsoo stared Kai right in the eyes as Kai licked a languid stripe up Sehun's cheekbone.

Kai was seduced. He moved around Sehun all together to capture Kyungsoo's plump, needy lips with insistence, placing a hand on Kyungsoo's wrist to keep Kyungsoo's hand in his pants. Kyungsoo turned Kai around so Kai lay on his back on the bed and he could properly unbutton Kai's pants. He felt Sehun's cool hands on his ass beneath his pants and boxers, Sehun's breath hot in his ear. "Payback," he said huskily, gripping Kyungsoo's ass roughly.

Kyungsoo felt Sehun's weight leave the bed for a moment as Kai pulled their mouths together and Kyungsoo was brought back into that heaven he knew he would never leave, if he had his way. Sehun's weight returned and Kyungsoo was permanently relived of his pants, feeling instead a slick cool finger traveling along his backside. He shivered and Kai pulled him closer, if that was possible.

Down Kyungsoo's tongue travelled, along Kai's perfectly crafted jawline, along his delicate collarbones, lingering at his nipples, and now it was Kai's turn to shiver. There were two fingers in his ass now, moving slowly. He continued his downward descent to Kai's happy line, taking his time, encouraged by the sighs escaping Kai's mouth.

Soon Kyungsoo was taking Kai's length into his mouth and he heard Kai moan long and loud in satisfaction. He heard Sehun and Kai kissing above him but Kai's hands were deep in his hair, massaging the nape of his neck as Kyungsoo moved up and down. Sehun's fingers finally retreated from Kyungsoo and he clenched briefly on air before he felt Sehun push his length into him. Kyungsoo stilled his mouth, letting the burn wash over him briefly. But he flicked his tongue a little bit and Kai threw his head back in ecstasy and Kyungsoo was at once distracted. 

He moved against Sehun was ready and Sehun began a gentle pace with a woosh of hot breath Kyungsoo felt on the nape of his neck. Kyungsoo couldn't help groaning a little onto Kai, making Kai buck up into his mouth at the feeling. Gradually, feeling began to overwhelm him as Sehun found the right angle and began to increase his speed, the heavy breathing of the three of them mingling to make the air hot and their skin burn. The low music pulsed background in time with the quiet slap of skin and wet sounds and low moans of Kai.

Kyungsoo ran his hand up and down the line between Kai's abs leisurely, nestled quietly in the crook of his arm. Sehun had slipped out a few minutes earlier, and they were enjoying a moment of peaceful, comfortable silence. Silence was hard to find, at least in Kyungsoo's life, and silence that wasn't awkward was a rare pearl to be cherished.

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again and let the light of the sun low in the sky filter through the thin curtain over the window, making Kai's skin glow a luminescent tan. Kai took a deep breath, his calm penetrating Kyungsoo's heart and making the room sparkle with clean serenity.

He had to ask. Too much had happened already and Kyungsoo didn't want to get into anything he couldn't get out of if it didn't have a chance. "How do I know I'm not another fucktoy?" he asked, his voice quiet and gentle, wincing a little as his voice poked the air. The words felt sour in his mouth.

Kai looked down at him, surprised. "Another pretty voice and pretty ass?" Kyungsoo continued quietly, continuing to trace Kai's happy line, watching the progression of his wandering hand so he didn't have to watch Kai's face. "I know you paint for other people. I don't see what makes me special." He finally looked up at Kai with the eyes of someone totally stripped, searching Kai's beautiful almond-shaped honeyed eyes for something. 

"Kyungsoo," Kai whispered, unable to muster the strength to speak. He whispered the name like a prayer. "Kyungsoo." he just said it again, as if the name itself held meaning and weight. At Kyungsoo's question, Kai seemed to curl up a little bit around Kyungsoo, crumpling the nice white sheets around them. Like he could just make his feelings go from him to Kyungsoo, just from being close enough.

Kyungsoo heard a bird chirp outside. "You," Kai said finally, licking his lips. "You are not that. You... I don't know how many times I have to tell you you're beautiful for it to sink in. Kyungsoo," Kyungsoo looked up at him, watching those honeyed orbs search for words that could make his meaning known. "You make me live, now."

Kyungsoo reached up and captured Kai's lips in a quiet kiss—unsure of any emotion except peace. "Kai," he said quietly, wondering if he said Kai's name the way Kai said his, prayer-like, "Will you come to one of my shows? Will you try? You can leave if it gets to be too much. I—I want you to really hear me sing. I think you would like it."

Kai looked at him for a long time, mulling over the idea. But his answer was a quiet kiss to Kyungsoo's forehead. He laughed when Kyungsoo's face morphed into a squishy smile, his doey eyes making little half-moons.

That night, Kyungsoo found Kai slumped against a wall in the back of a previously packed concert hall. The ceiling still echoed with leftover shouts of fans and discarded glowsticks turned the ground into a forest floor of glowing pine needles. The smell of sweat clung to Kyungsoo's clothes like it always did at the end of a concert; all in all, it was all rather normal. But the world seemed to recede as he came closer and closer to that figure, his heartbeat becoming the loudest thing he could hear. Kai was pale, and there was sweat beading on his forehead above closed eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: I'm really insecure about this chapter and I might delete it later but it was slated in so I had to write it, but seriously this kind of smuttiness is rough to write and I am still questioning myself.
> 
> I wonder what happened to Kai... will he be okay? And why was Sehun asking Kai about how his paintings were sold?


	8. Dancing, Of Course

Jongin stepped down from the bus with a sigh, impressed with himself. He could feel his apartment like it was a living thing pulsing near him a few blocks away, inviting him warmly back into the arms of its familiarity, and his fingers itched badly for his brushes and paint, the smell of a messy palate and the feeling of the hairs of his brush sweeping across the patterned contours of the canvas. It had been too long since he'd last lost himself. It had to be  _regular_. Jongin had already tired himself on the ride here, reprimanding himself for not painting regularly while he was away. It was why he'd collapsed in front of Kyungsoo. His stomach twisted again as he looked up at his apartment.  _So_ _embarrassing_. He couldn't begin to imagine what the whole debacle had looked like to Kyungsoo.

He did remember the sweet minutes of Kyungsoo's voice he'd been able to hear, concentrating as hard as he could on the singer's smooth tones. it was as good as Kyungsoo advertised. Jongin had refrained from telling Kyungsoo exactly how he dreamt of his voice, echoing off the walls of his bathroom. The old man who was always at the front desk smiled when he saw Jongin walk through doors, his crows' feet folding his face into an artwork of lines that told more story than anything Jongin could ever paint. Jongin had always intended to draw him, but he felt it would be... rude. He'd never asked the man's name. Still, he felt the man understood, and didn't hold it against him. 

The elevator had this mirror across from where you stood, the buttons set into it, and Jongin didn't usually look in the mirror very much at home, but he stared at his reflection in this mirror every day. He felt he had an emotional connection to the  _him_ in this mirror, the  _him_  that he hailed every day he left home and every day when he returned. He looked different than usual; his eyes seemed to sparkle a little, like they were about to smile, and his skin looked healthy and tan. Jongin bit his lip and tilted his head, studying himself. The Kyungsoo effect.

His door clicked invitingly for him when he punched in the passcode, and Jongin finally passed into his own personal kingdom, his shoulders settling even lower in his back. As he rounded the corner to view his living room, though, his shoulders immediately stiffened and he stopped in slipping his shoes off. His eyes quickly darted across the entirety of the room, from the high windows to the kitchen. Coushins from the couch were strewn across the floor, the couches looking bare and sad. The contents in the drawers of his coffee table were strewn about. The cabinets in the kitchen hung open and it looked like there were pieces of a splintered plate on the floor. 

Jongin felt his heart beat a little faster, his upper stomach twisting as his brain began to realize very quickly that this was very, very bad. His feet started again and he picked his way quickly across the mess to the door to his studio, not pausing before throwing the door open, praying with desperate fervor that nothing had been taken. Now, finally, he was glad Yixing had never convinced him to keep finished paintings in his apartment. Only one canvas had been in the room before he'd left, and he'd only sketched the outline for it. He'd planned to finish it when he got back.

He breathed a sigh of relief. It didn't seem his painting had been jeapordized. Perhaps they had just been ordinary theifs. 

He knew there was no way they had been ordinary thiefs. The building had welcomed him as if nothing had happened, the door hadn't been tampered with, and the TV wasn't gone. Nor was the bracelet Jongin kept in the top drawer of his dresser, the single most expensive thing Jongin kept in his apartment, except, perhaps for his clothes. Ordinary theivs would not have ripped everything apart so very thouroughly. Whoever it was had been  _looking_ for something.

Somehow, that fact made everything seem all the more dangerous. Jongin's thoughts immediatley went to Jinah, but while he didn't like her, he knew she wasn't a bad person. He would sooner call himself a bad person than Jinah, ona good day. Jongin took his phone out of his pocket with a shaking hand, standing among the chaos of clothes littering the floor of his room. A light voice answered on the second ring, and Jongin winced at the colorlessness of the normal calming voice over the phone.

"Hey, where are you right now?" he asked.

"Home. Why, did you just get here? Do you want me to come over?" Yixing replied.

"No, no. Can I come over to your place? Actually... actually, yes, can you come over? I want you to see something."

Yixing must have heard the worry in Jongin's voice, because he hung up with a 'yep' and two minutes later he heard the telltale whisper of the door opening and Yixing's soft footsteps slowly making their way into the room. "This wasn't you, right?" Asked Yixing, his mouth forming a perfect o. "I didn't miss a psychotic break or something?"

"No." Jongin shook his head. "I just got back. Must have happened while I was away."

"Well." Yixing's eyes travelled quickly across the apartment. "Did you have any paintings...?" Jongin shook his head. "Well. I guess you should definitley stay with me, then. Would you be okay with that? I know you've already been away for a while and you were probably looking forward to just getting home."

Jongin shrugged his shoulders, trying to look nonchalanat. "I'm fine." He was suprised when tears pricked hotly against the insides of his eyes. Maybe he hadn't realized how rutted into the same routine, into the same place he'd been. Maybe he  _had_ been looking forward to it. "Let's go," he mumbled, swiping his jacket from the hook where he had just placed it and slipping past Yixing back into the hall.

Lying awake that night, staring at the celing on Yixing's couch, Jongin tried to think of something that would break him out of the fear his mind kept swirling around. He wanted to find where Kyungsoo lived, he wanted to climb through Kyungsoo's window and invite him out into the world, he wanted to forget the colors the world created for him and only him, he wanted to run away and only hear Kyungsoo's voice forever. A plan began to form.

* * *

Kyungsoo had a running bet with Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo won when Kai showed up not two days after they'd gotten back, at seven at night, with no prior notice. Kyungsoo texted Baekhyun gleefully as he skipped out of the elevator and ran straight into a tall, broad chest that he recognized even as long arms wrapped around him in suprise and soft lips were pressed against the top of his head. He tilted his head up, his phone forgotten, his lips searching, and was rewarded with a quick hello kiss.

"Hello," Kyungsoo said through his smile. Jongin looked radiant, his skin glowing and his hair styled back. His shirt was clean pressed white and he wore a comfortable but sharp brown suit. Kyungsoo was gald he hadn't thrown on anything the stylists gave him—it was always ripped jeans and five coats with them. Instead, he'd thrown on some skinny black pants and a pale pink dress shirt. They didn't match—the thought was repulsive to Kyungsoo—but they  _went_  together.

"Hi," rumbled Kai.

"Where are we going that's so urgent, then?" Asked Kyungsoo. Kai had already slung a posessive arm around his shoulders and begun to lead him out of the building towards a waiting car. "You know this is my only night off for the next two and a half weeks."

"Why, dancing, of course," replied Kai. "Dancing is one of my talents."

"You... that's not too much for you?" Kyungsoo asked. 

"On the contrary," Kai replied, holding the door for Kyungsoo, "Dancing is one of the joys of life." Kyungsoo slid into the rich leather interior with a smile wide on his face. Of course he loved hanging out with Kai alone, just the two of them, but they'd never been on a real date. 

"Was it nice getting back home?" Kyungsoo asked once Kai had slid in after him and the car was on its way to wherever they were going.

Kai slid his eyes over to Kyungsoo, eyes quiet and distant. "You look amazing today," he said finally, smiling a little bit. "Do I tell you you look amazing enough? I love your eyebrows. I think I'm going to have a new obsession every day I see you."

Kyungsoo stared at him, mouth hanging a little wide. Kai's skin sparkled slightly in the filtered light of the window, but with that little smile... he looked  _young_. And  _innocent_. Kyungsoo wanted to forget everything sinister he knew about Kai and just see him as a boy with a smile.

He was, however, not unflappable. "So it wasn't nice getting home? I would have thought you'd like to get back to painting. Yixing told me you paint every day and get crabby when you don't."

Kai shrugged. "I don't get crabby per se. I have trouble being in a bad mood around you." at Kyungsoo's reaised eyebrow, he continued, "But about getting home—it's nothing for you to worry about. Someone broke into my apartment. But it's fine. I'm staying with Yixing."

"While we were away? While we were away someone broke into your apartment? Did they—did they steal any paintings or anything?" Kyungsoo wondered how much Kai was worth, just him and his brain as they were.

"No—I don't keep any paintings in my apartment for long periods of time." Kai mused about something for a moment, then his mouth twitched and he seemed to decide to divulge something to Kyungsoo. "But the thing is, they knew my code. That's the only explanation I can think of. And I don't let anyone into the room where I paint, so they must have thought..." Kai's hand moved like he wanted to run it through his hair, then he remembered he had stuff in it and his hand paused. "I don't know." He gave a huffing laugh. "You know, I should probably warn you about my parents while you can still back out. I mean two weeks, they'd probably be okay with it if I said I was going solo. But listen—they aren't loving parents. They kicked me out of the house and pretend not to know me."

Kyungsoo cocked his head. "Why? You're a famous painter, there's nothing shameful about that. You must rake in more than I do."

Kai looked at him skeptically. "Maybe I make more for myself personally, but trust me, that's probably because your company doesn't even tell you how much you make." He paused, and then when Kyungsoo didn't say anything he made a little exasperated sound. "Come on, there's plenty about me to be... put off by. You could say I'm crazy—I'm literally a  _type_ of crazy. I'm gay. And I'm not a pushover."

"Then why are you going to have dinner with them at all? Why are you bringing  _me_?"

Kai shrugged. "It's for a good cause. Apparently, whoever it is they're having over is a real fan of me and my stuff. My parents said they were negotiating with the guy to buy up some of that land on the Southside. To build low-income housing."

Kyungsoo laughed a little, but then swallowed his giggle as Kai looked at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Are you making fun of me?" Kai asked, hitting Kyungsoo lightly on his pink forearm. Kyungsoo let out another laugh and Kai hit him again, but it only made him laugh harder. 

"You must have been sent to this earth by God himself to bring beauty and kindness to all us earthlings," Kyungsoo said as the car rolled to a stop by the side of the road. He said it jokingly, but he was completely serious. Kai just rolled his eyes and popped the door open, his eyes sparkling.

Kyungsoo climbed out of the car with wide eyes. They were by the river and the sky was lit by orange lights. The street and sidewalk were the same old, rounded stone, smooth from years of meticulous upkeep. an expanse of the stone stretched from where they stood right to the riverbank, and it seemed like every inch of it was filled with people. What sounded like live music thrummed in the background. There seemed to be some sort of agreed upon dance space where couples and individuals wove together with ease and skill that said they did this often. 

What amazed him the most was everyone's faces. Everyone was smiling or grinning, or their mouths were turend a little bit upward, and their eyes sparkled as they twirled or sat on benches off to the side, wrapped up in each other or sharing what looked like cigarettes. Everything was orange-washed color, reds and dark blues and yellows swirling together so that Kyungsoo couldn't look at the sight without smiling.

"This is what you're taking me to?" he asked, throwing out a hand and intending to hit Kai lightly on the arm. He hit Kai's stomach instead and Kai took a stumbling step back with an  _oof_. "Kai!" Kyungsoo half-shouted, half whispered. "I'm going to get recognized here! I'm going to get recognized here for sure, this isn't going to work!"

"Calm down!" Kai replied, a smile in his voice, his arm wrapping around Kyungsoo's waist, his warm hand settling against Kyungsoo's side. "They won't care. I'll bet you. I'll bet you a thousand dollars that they won't care, and that fewer than—fewer than  _five_ people will ask you for an autograph."

"A  _thousand dollars_? Do you doubt my fame?" Kyungsoo asked playfully, but he didn't take the bet, recognizing some sort of hope that Kai was right, that he could lose himself in something so joyful as this.

"Come on!" Kai said, threading their fingers together and dragging Kyungsoo towards the dance floor, his legs covering the ground much more quickly than Kyungsoo's could. Kai easily manuvered themt through dancers so that they were only slightly to the side of the middle, and then Kai began to dance to the beat of the bass. Kyungsoo watched, mezmerized, until he realized he should probably dance too. He began to sway to the music, unable to keep his eyes from the sway of Kai's hips and the fluidity with which he moved. Kyungsoo watched Kai get lost in the beat, his hair falling a little into his face, for the whole song.

The music turned to a slower, sensual beat and a low-voiced woman came on the mic, begining to sing over a low rythm. Kai grinned and draped his long arms over Kyungsoo's shoulders, the smell of his cologne seeping into Kyungsoo. Kai let his hands slide down Kyungsoo's arms and came to a rest at his hips. They were pressed very close together, heat shifting lazily between their bodies. Kyungsoo wasn't complaining, and it wasn't like there was plenty of space on the dance floor anyway, but Kai's face was so close now, his eyes sparkling and lips plump and stretched across his face in an adoring smile. Kyungsoo shuddered, unfamiliar with this type of intimate exhiliration, with not being able to look away like this. His mouth fell a little open and he turned away from the intensity, facing the stage so that Kai was pressed against his back.

This wasn't any better. " _Fuck_ ," he heard Kai growl behind him as warm hands wrapped around to grip his hips and pull him closer. He couldn't see Kai, but he felt his hot breath on his neck and then the light brush of lips, making him shiver. Tentatively, Kyungsoo rolled his hips back to the music and he felt Kai's quick breath in response, hands tightening on his hips. Kyungsoo moved his arms back to pull Kai's ass closer, all the while yelling at himself in his hazy mind, his teeth gritted.  _Someone's gonna see you and this will be the last nice thing you will ever do._ For some reason, he didn't care. He could feel Kai slightly through his pants and Kai's warmth seeped into him, as did the heat of the crowd, bringing a blush to his cheeks.

Finally, the song died away and Kai took his hand and led him out of the dancers quickly, leading him down the street a little bit and down in front of the river, where he immediatley attacked Kyungsoo's lips, a big hand pulling Kyungsoo towards him by the back of his neck. Kyungsoo melted into the kiss, opening his mouth for Kai's insistent tongue and letting Kai explore his body hotly with quick, needy fingers. He slid his hands under Kai's shirt, untucking it, relishing the rippling he found beneath. 

Kai broke away stumbling, breathing heavily, pulling his shirt down a little. His pupils were shot wide and he looked a little drunk even though they hadn't had a drop that night. "You," he said, pointing a slender finger at Kyungsoo, coming closer again like he physically couldn't stay away for long, "I am going to paint you. None of this bullshit I usually make..." he cupped Kyungsoo's face in his hands. "I am going to  _paint_  you." His voice went into a low little growl and he pressed another kiss to Kyungsoo's lips, threading his fingers through Kyungsoo's. 

Kyungsoo came out of the kiss with a sigh, looking up at the moon and letting the cool breeze kiss his sweaty face with a sigh. "You wanna sit?" Kai asked quietly. Kyungsoo nodded and Kai immediatley dropped, swinging his long legs over the wharf so they dangled above the water. Kyungsoo sat down beside him and leaned his head against his shoulder. 

"You know how you always say you like my voice? I—Your voice is pretty too, you know," Kyungsoo said quietly. "It has a pretty timbre."

"Thanks," Jongin rumbled above him. "That's... people don't usually notice other people's voices very much, I think. Seeing them... you see a lot more emotion than that person neccessarialy wants to let on."

"Hmm, my boyfriend has a superpower," Kyungsoo mused. "He can literally see between the lines." Kai's shoulder shook as he laughed. "Tell me something," Kyugsoo said. "Anything about me you can find out with a simple google search. But you... Kai isn't even your real name, I think."

"Kai _is_ my name," Kai replied, frowning. "What do you want to know?"

"Will you promise your mood won't get ruined or anything?"

"I promise."

"Will you tell me about Jinah? From your point of view?"

"Jinah?" Kai seemed suprised, like he'd forgotten how Kyungsoo had left their first night together. Then he shrugged one shoulder, keeping the other one steady for Kyungsoo's head and resting his hand comfortably on Kyungsoo's thigh. "Jinah... Jinah is hard to explain. I don't even know where to start."

"She's your wife, right? Why did you marry her?"

Kai licked his lips. "I was young then—four years ago still seems like a long time ago, I guess we’re still that young," he began. "I thought it was stupid to marry for love—I thought it fickle, I thought it... I thought it something that could change just like that. That’s what the world showed me. And I’d been holding in the colors for so long that I almost didn’t notice them at all. So I married Jinah because my parents loved her and through her they loved me a little more, too. But we didn’t love each other, not as I know love now—how I _view_ it now. When she discovered I could paint—and, to her credit, she’s a very ambitious person, a genius even—she facilitated everything.

"What neither of us knew was that while I came out of my shell, so did the colors, and I really hadn’t realized how ugly her voice was. I know that sounds cruel, but it’s the sort of thing I’m powerless to change. Anyway, after a few years she hired Yixing to coordinate my paintings and went off to Japan where she got scouted, and she really seems to like it. She’d like to come back here, I know, but I really thinks modeling suits her. She likes pretty people.”

Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow. “She made a good choice when choosing a husband, then.”

Kai smiled, but there was a mournful expression swirling behind his eyes. "I'm really not a mean person, Kyungsoo. I've seen meanness and I don't... I'm  _determined_ not to be that. But I  _figuratively_  see red whenever I see her voice. And I've asked around a little bit, but really, I..." his voice wobbled a little bit. "I don't recognize myself when I'm trying to talk to her," he whispered, his voice rough.

Kyungsoo moved his hand to the small of Kai's back, worrying a bit when he felt Kai shake a little. He nuzzled deeper into Kai's shoulder, his jacket smelling like smoke and rain. Then Kai laughed a little and wrapped his arms all the way around Kyungsoo's waist, putting his lips to Kyungsoo's temple. They sat like that for a few moments, and then Kai took a deep breath and pulled back a little bit, so their noses brushed. "Come on," he rumbled. "I came here to dance. Just promise not to be so delicious, or I'll have to keep pulling away just to remind myself I can kiss you." He rose gracefully, offering Kyungsoo a hand getting up. 

They danced late into the night, until the musicians were hiding their yawns and most of the people had straggled home for the night. It was actually the driver who came to get them, reminding Kai that he got off work in less than an hour and he didn't want to leave them there. 

They stumbled into the car, a little tipsy, and Kai decided to abandon decorum and kicked off his shoes in the car, draping his long legs over Kyunsoo's lap, making Kyungsoo promise first that his feet didn't stink. Kyungsoo genuinley wasn't sure, but he drew Kai in anyway so all he smelled was Kai's smoky, alchoholic breath. Kai's eyes sparkled as brightly as they had at the begining of the light. 

"Be mine," Kai murmered, his words seductive and honeyed. "I want to call you mine. _Kyungsoo_." He said the name like a prayer. Kyungsoo couldn't stand being this close without kissing him, so he did, sucking on Kai's lips and prodding at his mouth for an opening. Kai pulled away a little bit, flustered, stuttering, "No—baby—I want you to say—" 

"I'm yours," Kyungsoo interrupted, chasing Kai's lips until he finally found them. They surely annoyed the driver with sloppy sounds the whole way home. 

* * *

Kyungsoo got home when the sun was just begining to peek above the horizon, his lids feeling glued shut. Wearily, he plugged his phone in to charge, checking the messages. Only two from his manager, which meant nothing urgent had happened. No one had approached him while they'd been dancing—no one had even reported that Do Kyungsoo had been acting decidedly gay with a mysterious tall tan god. Nothing on the news, nothing in the tabloids.

It had never happened like that before, not once.

He wondered if perhaps Kai  _was_ some sort of god, or at least a magician.

There  _was_ a message from an unfamiliar number. His managers kept his phone number on lockdown, so whoever it was had to have gotten the number by legal means. He punched his voicemail and put the phone to his ear tiredly, pulling out his pajamas at the same time and turning on the shower to let it get nice and warm.

" _Hi Kyungsoo, I think we talked before. It's Jinah. I know you and Kai have been spending a lot of time together, which usually I'm totally fine with. You just unfortunatley got him at the wrong time. You know what they say about relationships, timing is everything. He's really not_ —" there was some static on the other end of the line. Kyungsoo had frozen when he heard who it was and how he stood waiting for her to hang up. But she didn't, and her voice came back after a few moments. " _It's his parents, really. And no, this isn't some kind of fucking, I don't know, some kind of Romeo and Juliet scenario. They want the world to know who he is. I know he doesn't want that. And he'll be fine, but if he has a boyfriend_ — _anyway, you understand, right?_ " it sounded like she shifted the phone between hands and there was a short, crackling sigh.  _"I'm saying you should leave him, or he might not be happy."_  

Translation: if he didn't walk away from Kai, Jinah would tell the whole world who he was. And Kyungsoo knew that life all too well. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: sorry it's been so long to update! School and stuff is crazy, I just felt like I really needed to continue the storyline. I hope you like the fluff and the double update!


	9. French Lilac

Kai opened the door lazily, clearly expecting Kyungsoo to be Yixing. His pinkish hair looked softer than feathers, shoved back from his face. He was wearing an old white 21 pilots t-shirt streaked with every color of paint imaginable. He must have gotten it before he was done growing because it stretched tight against his chest, bunching a little at the armpits. Soft grey sweatpants hung low on his hips, not concealing the hint of a v-line peeking from below the shirt. "...Kyungsoo?" his voice escaped his throat viscously. He blinked like he was coming out of some kind of revoir. 

Kyungsoo had already worked himself up and he didn't want Kai's tantalizingly delicious comfy look distract him, pushing past Kai into the apartment. "You have to schedule the dinner for sooner," he said, turning before he'd gone into the apartment proper. Kai was still getting his bearings, whirling, his eyes widening. He moved cautiously around Kyungsoo so he was between Kyungsoo and the apartment and then shoved his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants, making them slide even lower. Kyungsoo swallowed.

"What, reschedule the dinner with my parents? Babe, it's a done deal, they already finalized it with Mr. Oh."

Kyungsoo was shaking his head. "No,  _listen to me_. I have a hunch. Do you know how many times people have tried to dupe me for one reason or another? If you call them and tell them the only time you can do is—" Kyungsoo ran through his scedule in his head quickly—"Is Saturday night, I guarantee you they'll do it. They'll get Mr. Oh or whatever to come then. Just call them."

"Soo, what's this about? Do you not want to go? Did your company schedule something?" Kai put a concerned hand on Kyungsoo's shoulder, moving Kyungsoo so he was trapped between a concerned Kai and the wall.

"No, that's not it at all," Kyungsoo replied, clenching his jaw and trying not to think about Kai's lips—now was not the time. "Please," he said, "Just call them." his heart was thudding in his chest.  _You don't understand what will happen if you don't._

Kai eyed him for a moment, then decided whatever it was in Kyungsoo's eyes was worth calling his parents. "Stay here, okay? Promise me."

"What, you're not going to invite me in?" Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow, but Kai looked at him seriously.

"I'm not even remotely kidding, babe." the electricity snapping in his eyes raised the hair on the back of Kyungsoo's neck and tickled his curiosity, but he just nodded, focused on getting Kai to make the call, hoping it would end up the way it needed to. He needed to see them, get this straightened out before everything went south—before everything was ruined.

After another moment staring at Kyungsoo, Kai retreated into the apartment and could be heard padding to his room to retrieve his phone. Kyungsoo's ears pricked, straining to hear anything. 

"Hello Hyunjun, it's Jongin. Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about." There was a pause and then something whispered Kyungsoo couldn't make out. "Could we make it this Saturday, would that be viable?" another pause. "No, it's not because of him, this is just me asking you. I can't do it on the 27th." silence. "Well, something came up. You're not my manager." there was a long silence as the person on the other side of the phone spoke. _So he calls his mom by her first name_ , thought Kyungsoo. It was virtually unheard of. Then, quietly, "he really can't do any other—" 

Kyungsoo's stomach dropped. This  _had_ to work. He'd been through every emotion under the sun for the past night and day and night again, trying to figure out what was best to do, moving through interviews and shows like a zombie. His feet moved on their own, advancing slowly into the apartment. There was a light buzzing in his ears and he was finding it hard to hear what Kai was saying anymore.

Then his eyes caught sight of the giant canvas laid in the middle of the living room. All the furniture was moved to the edges; the canvas must have been at least ten by twelve feet. The painting on it was almost finished; Kyungsoo felt the breath in his lungs leave in one swift  _swoosh_. It was a painting of himself, his face blown up many times its real size, but it wasn't painted with the lazy impressionist's brush that characterized Kai's other work. His features were painted in perfect, beyond realistic detail, his eye shinning big and brown, his heart-shaped lips shining slightly and his skin glowing with a pale luminescence. Kyungsoo felt he could reach out and touch it and he would feel skin, he would feel real hair. He felt like he was making eye contact with himself.

Swirling around him was a mist of lilac smoke, half reminiscent of El Greco and half Van Gogh. The artistic, french lilac haze wrapped around him like his own cloak, making his skin appear to glow even more and seeming to ruffle his hair just a little bit.

It was the masterpiece the world had been waiting for.

And it was of  _him._

" _You._ " Kai's voice from the other night echoed in his head. " _I'm going to paint you. None of this bullshit I usually make... I am going to paint you."_

Kyungsoo felt his legs give way and suddenly he was kneeling in front of the painting, his chest shaking. He reached an unsteady hand up to his face and realized when it came away wet that he was crying. That's how Kai found him when he emerged from his room a few moments later, shoving the phone in his pocket angrily but stopping dead when he saw Kyungsoo kneeling before the painting. Stock still, eyes wide, they stared at each other across the room for what seemed like forever.

This was so much deeper than either of them had ever imagined it could be.

It was broken when a racking sob escaped from Kyungsoo's mouth and Kai rushed forward to kneel beside him, wrapping warm, strong arms around him in a warm, tender hug. Another sob escaped, then another. "You—they—can't—re—schedule—it—can—they," Kyungsoo forced out between hiccuping sobs. Kai's arms around him felt so  _right_ , and the idea of never feeling them again felt repulsive.

"My baby, my Kyungsoo," murmured Kai against his ear, stroking his back with a steady hand, "Tell me what's really wrong. Tell me what's wrong, baby."

The kindness bleeding from Kai's voice only made Kyungsoo cry harder. "I can't—" he let out a shaking sigh, forcing himself to calm down enough to speak. "We can't be together anymore. I—" another shaking sigh. Kyungsoo pressed his forehead against Kai's shoulder. "I can't see you and you can't see me."

"Kyungsoo?" Kai pulled back, his eyes wide. "Is it the painting? Is something wrong with it? I can burn it, I promise. I haven't slept a whole lot the past few days, that's probably why it's so bad—"

"No!" Kyungsoo gasped, catching Kai's hand that had been reaching to sweep the brush haphazardly over the canvas. "Please! Please, if you do nothing I ask for the rest of your life,  _please_  don't destroy the painting. I can't believe you turned me into a god with a brush and some paint."

"So you like it?" Kai's eyebrows drew together. "Baby, I think you're overwhelmed. Here." He brought one hand under Kyungsoo's knees and the other around his shoulders and picked him like a baby, carrying him to his bedroom and depositing him softly into the sheets. Then he slid into the bed next to him, pulling the big down comforter over them both and swiping his thumbs beneath Kyungsoo's eyes, brushing away tears. "You look like you haven't had a lot of sleep either." Long arms wrapped around his waist. "Let's talk after we sleep."

Kyungsoo opened his mouth to say something, but the bed was the softest thing he'd ever expierenced, and Kai's slow, steady breath next to him seemed to physically push his eyelids closed. He felt a feather kiss behind his ear just before he drifted away into a black sleep.

* * *

He woke to butterflies. They fluttered against his eyelids, on his nose, behind his ear, against his lips, on his collarbone. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open, the sun haloing around a kind face floating above him. The butterflies turned to lips brushing against his neck and Kyungsoo snuggled deeper into the warm covers, closer towards the warmth of Kai's body beside him. 

"Morning," Kai muttered in his ear, finishing off his greeting with a little nip. "You feeling okay?"

Kyungsoo nodded, his mind hazy, that morning seeming a world away. "Good," came Kai's velvety voice. "It's been too long since I saw you last. Can't have you forgetting whose you are." He pressed his lips to Kyungsoo's first chastely and then with more force, coaxing Kyungsoo's mouth open and flicking his tongue against Kyungsoo's teeth. Kyungsoo sucked in a breath, pressing back and pressing his tongue into Kai's mouth. They pushed and pulled, needily, the kiss escalating quickly to sloppy want.

Soon Kai was betwen Kyungsoo's spread legs, grinding as they kissed, his hands pulling at Kyungsoo's shirt as Kyungsoo explored the rippling expanse of muscle underneath Kai's painting shirt. Kai quickly became impatient with it, sitting up and taking it off while showing Kyungsoo the expanse of skin and muscle across his chest, his arms reaching long and muscled. Kyungsoo pulled him down by the drawstring of his pants, their lips meeting again immediately, a fervent necessity hanging in the hot air between them. It had been too long.

Kai had Kyungsoo's shirt off in no time too, moving with succulent lips down Kyungsoo's jaw down to his nipples. He swirled his tongue around them, his hand snaking into Kyungsoo's pants to palm him through his underwear. Kyungsoo moaned, looking up at the ceiling and burying his hands in Kai's hair. Kai removed his pants and boxers quickly, his mouth moving to the inside of Kyungsoo's thigh and then up to his hip, the pads of his fingers making maddening little circles across the soft skin. 

Kyungsoo knew what he wanted. Hands gripped in Kai's hair, he guided his head to his cock, watching as Kai glanced up at him with hooded eyes. Feeling like it was Kai who was really in control, Kyungsoo moved his mouth up to the head of his cock and thrust up just a little so the tip brushed Kai's lips. A pink tongue slipped from between Kai's lips and he swirled it around the head, smirking slightly when Kyungsoo's jaw clenched. Kyungsoo thrust up again and this time Kai opened his mouth so an inch went inside. His tongue was just as dangerous inside his mouth, making maddening patterns around Kyungsoo's dick. Kyungsoo thrust up more, bringing Kai's head down, and Kai obediently hollowed his cheeks, watching Kyungsoo through his eyelashes as he did. 

Kyungsoo was struck with how improbable this, how utterly sexy, how beautiful Kai was.  _How did he ever see anything in me?_  he thought. Those eyes were more seductive than Aphrodite herself. Kyungsoo moved Kai's head back a little and then down again, thrusting more so he felt the back of Kai's throat. Hotness coiled in his stomach and he saw Kai's eyes water a little, though he didn't gag. 

He let Kai's head go, laying back as Kai immediately returned to his lips, sucking them swollen as he removed his own pants and began to rub their members together, moaning a little into Kyungsoo's mouth when Kyungsooo began to stroke him. Then, all of a sudden, Kai stopped and sat up, chest rising and falling in great waves, soft hair worried every which way, pupils blown wide. Naked. 

Kyungsoo reached for him again, his cock heavy and weeping, his lips swollen, but Kai just took his hand and picked him up off the bed, leading him into the bathroom and turning on the shower. He seemed to want to get in, but Kyungsoo was focused and needy and they didn't make it, Kyungsoo wrapping his arms around Kai's neck and sucking hard on his lower lip, then moving to Kai's perfect jawline. Kai was moaning and his hands were flitting across Kyungsoo's body, finally finding their way to squeeze Kyungsoo's ass and then grip his thighs, picking him up and wrapping Kyungsoo's legs around his waist.

Finally Kai brought them into his big walk-in shower, warm water hitting Kyungsoo's back pleasantly as they kissed.

They kissed for a reason.

Neither had really forgotten earlier.

 

That night, Kyungsoo sat cross-legged on that soft bed, watching the soft rise and fall of Kai's chest, memorizing the way his lips pouted slightly when he slept, the angle of his jaw, the geometry of his cheekbones, his cute ears, his soft hair.

Finally, he pressed a tender kiss to Kai's forehead, causing the other to turn a little bit, to wiggle towards the warmth of Kyungsoo's body, but Kyungsoo rose, his mind still and quiet like the dark room around him. Then he tucked the comforter around Kai's sleeping form and quietly closed the bedroom door behind him. The elevator ride down nearly broke him, throwing his reflection back at him with a harsh, mocking light. He  _looked_  sad, his mouth pressed into a serious line and his eyebrows drawn together. But he made it out of the building and into the waiting car he'd texted for, collapsing into the seat with a long breath.

When he closed his eyes, he still saw that painting, as if it were permanently tattooed there, mocking him, laughing at him, the lilac smoke moving behind his eyelids as his car barreled down the empty highway, blown away bit by bit, rushing back towards Kai, where it belonged. Kyungsoo's knuckles were getting white as they gripped the armrests.

* * *

Jongin woke to dreary, halfhearted sun, his comforter tucked neatly around him in a way he knew it would never be after any normal night. He yawned—he'd been sleeping so deeply he didn't remember what it was about. The apartment still hung with an air of lilac, which always seemed to calm him, to lift his heart. 

A few minutes later, Jongin regarded the painting in his living room, his eyebrows drawn a little bit together. It was done, but... he didn't want to get rid of it. Not this one, not yet. Sentimentality had never attached itself to art like this before.

 _I can't see you and you can't see me_. Surely he hadn't meant it. His schedule was probably getting tight—maybe he was preparing for a new album release. They would find time. They always did. Somehow, it had become the most important thing.

Assuming Kyungsoo had had some sort of appointment early, Jongin retrieved his phone with a sigh, scrolling to the text conversation labeled ♡ _Mine_ ♡ and firing off a quick message.

_Miss you babe. See ya soon, work hard but not too hard <3_

After sending the text Jongin decided to figure out how to get this painting out of the middle of his apartment at least.

* * *

Author's note: A heartbreaking chapter, sorry it's kind of short! We get to meet people  _other_ than Jongin and Kyungsoo next chapter, yay! Comments are always appreciated :)


	10. Just Until the Dinner

_I was serious when I told you we couldn't see each other. It just hurt more than I thought it would._

Jongin stared at the words on the screen, dumb and disbelieving, his eyes tracing every digital curve, seeking the trick, trying to find what was playing with his mind. His fingers shook on top of the keyboard and he wanted to laugh at himself. A few years ago—no, make that a few moths ago—he would have seen someone torn apart by looking at their phone and laughed. But at the very least he wasn't the sort of person to give up and wallow.

_It's about my parents, right? What's wrong? I need to understand._

He sat back on his couch. He spent so much time in this apartment. He'd been painting so much lately that even a small excursion had him spent. He'd resolved to hold back after he painted Kyungsoo, but lately, with nothing to do except sit around, he'd been drawn to the easel more and more. Yixing brought him food periodically, but he hadn't seen anyone see the painting of Kyungsoo.

It was for him, for now. Just him. His phone pinged, and he jumped, suprised. He hadn't expected a response. That's how it usually went, right? The person doing the breaking up cut off all contact. It wouldn't be that hard for Kyungsoo, either—he always had a scedule. He would always have an excuse.

_Jinah called and said you parents would give your identity to the world if they found out we were dating. So we can't be seen dating, and because it's Jinah, and she knows you so well, we can't see each other._

Jongin raked a distressed hand through his hair. An explanation. Funny, he would have pegged Kyungsoo as the sort to take his pain and his problems and hold them inside.

Then his phone dinged again.

_So if she asks, I've broken up with you._

Jongin's hands flew across the keyboard. 

_Does that mean we aren't broken up? I can't never see you again, mine._

There was a moment of pause, and then an answer appeaered on the screen. Jongin felt his stomach drop and was half-tempted to call his parents again and tell them it was tomorrow or it was never. But he understood the need for discresion; he didn't want to lose the relative aninomity he enjoyed. Kyungsoo certaintly seemed willing to do a lot to protect it.

_We are. But maybe I'll see you at the dinner._

There was a knock at his door and Jongin jumped, shoving his phone deep into his sweatpants. Usually Yixing just opened the door and knocked on the wall to let Jongin know he was around, so it couldn't be him. Who, then?

He opened the door to a familiar pointed pixie face. Sehun had dyed his hair into a wild rainbow and he was dressed more fashionably than normal, a few necklaces ringing his neck and a well-tailored leather jacket hanging from his shoulders. He was grinning.

"Kai! It's been a while! Wow, is that what you usually wear, and I just catch you when you're playing dress up?" Sehun licked his lips, his eyes roaming Jongin's body. 

Jongin sighed. "Sehun, it's not a good time. You should have texted me first or something. How's Luhan?"

"Luhan's great! I've been so many places, Kai. You know how you always say no one can resist me? Literally no one can resist the two of us. And he introduced me to some guys who really want me to model for this new line of pants, or something. Your advice kind of paid off, actually, because I think it was good to know what I was looking for, who could get me hooked up and stuff. It took work. I've seen kids prettier than me get dropped because they didn't know what they were doing. Anyway, how are you?"

Sehun made to move past Jongin into the living room, but Jongin remembered the mammoth of a painting leaning against the wall and caught Sehun's hips just in time. Sehun turned to him immediatley his eyes flashing and lively. "You look really sexy right now, but I'm really trying the whole monogamous thing with Luhan. I would have thought you were there with that singer. Oh my god, did you break up?"

Jongin rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we broke up." His stomach twisted as he said it, but he hoped it was convincing. After all, Sehun knew him as the Kai of before, the Kai who'd never had a relationship with half as much investment as him and Kyungsoo. He'd been sweet, but things rarely went past a light affection. 

"Well, I'm off limits." Sehun seemed to be trying to avoid looking at him, and Jongin wondered what it was about sweatpants that seemed to get everyone hot and bothered. 

"Sehun, you should probably go. It's been good to see you, but—"

"No! If you broke up, you have to at least tell me what happened." Before Jongin could say anything, Sehun had pushed past him into the living room. When Jongin came rushing after him, he found Sehun standing stock still in front of the painting which, granted, dominated the room. 

"Well," Sehun said, his voice hushed as if a little reverent, "He certaintly made an impression on you."

"That—that was just a little project I did for myself—" Jongin sputtered, moving to stand in between Sehun and the painting. He felt icky, he felt as if someone had just opened the door to his heart and he hadn't invited them in. Soon Sehun was being ushered back towards the door. 

Still a little stunned, Sehun had the presence of mind to turn back before Jongin closed the door on him. "Was it a difficult breakup, then? I've never seen something... are you selling that one?"

"No!" Jongin replied, too quickly. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Nah, Sehunnie, I think... I think I'm gonna keep this one for a while. We'll see." This time, he wasn't lying. Sehun's eyes were still abnormally large, his adam's apple bobbing up and down, but he'd been sufficiently thrown off that he didn't try to stay, just put a concerned hand on Jongin's shoulder before dissappearing behind the door. Jongin ran a distressed hand through his hair, realizing he needed a shower. And sleep. He hadn't had either in too long.

 

The next morning didn't make his situation seem better: the sun didn't shine very brightly, and he spent most of the day in Yixing's apartment, working his way through Yixing's tea and then moving on to his other relaxing substances. Yixing didn't seem to mind, as he was in and out of the apartment most of the day, but he did stop to make sure Jongin was okay, and shot him worried stares when he thought Jongin wasn't looking.

 

The next morning wasn't any better either: the sun seemed to refuse to bring him out of the slow, aching state he was discovering. He read a book. He watched another movie Kyungsoo had been in, even though it was just a supporting role.

 

The next morning still wasn't better: the sun mocked him now, shining weakly into his apartment and making everything seem grey. Breakfast came and went, and then he went to Yixing's for lunch, then he returned and took a nap, then found himself on the couch again. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, running his hands over his face. Even with his eyes closed he could feel Kyungsoo looking down at him from the painting that dominated the apartment. Even with his eyes closed he could seee Kyungsoo's heart-shaped lips like they were right there in front of him, swollen a little from kisses, just how he liked them. When he opened his eyes they vanished like smoke and he was alone and the sun was weak.

He turned the TV on again but put it on mute and put on Kyungsoo's album instead, watching Kyungsoo's face on the screen before him intently. He wasn't really watching; instead he saw Kyungsoo before him, reaching to pull his t-shirt over his head and revealing miles of milky skin dotted with small coffee-colored moles. He felt heat pooling in his stomach; those full lips were an unholy drug surely more addicting than any substance in existence. And his thighs: Kyungsoo's thighs were his favorite to dig his fingers into, to feel wrapped around his waist. He pulled his sweatpants down a little bit to palm himself, Kyungsoo Imagined becoming realer and realer as he got more excited. Lilac floated around him in a thick, bass-saturated smoke. It was a trigger in itself.

His thoughts got dirtier and dirtier and he groaned; it had been days, but Kyungsoo was too good. He imagined Kyungsoo's sweet breath huffing against his neck; his hand moved once and he twitched. He felt as if he weren't allowed to think of that perfect singer now; he was supposed to be restrained, to keep his distance, but now Kyungsoo flashed before him naked, now spread in front of him, staring at him with those wide eyes. His hand kept moving. With his other hand, he picked up his phone.

 _Fuck,_ he typed, gritting his teeth,  _I want you so bad._

He sent it, not caring anymore. When he opened the message that he got back, he almost dropped the phone, then he moaned, pumping his hand faster. There was  _his_ boyfriend, looking up at the camera through his lashes, his lip tucked into his mouth. It didn't take much after that for Jongin to come with heavy breaths.

Later, he decided to see if Kyungsoo was still responsive.

 _I want you to cuddle._  
sent.  
 _I want your lips to myself._  
sent.  
 _I want to fuck you until you scream you're mine to the world._

But Kyungsoo was radio-silent. It had been a one-off then; Kyungsoo intended to keep from contacting him until the dinner finally came, still a week and a half away.

Another day passed achingly slowly. Jongin kept trying to paint, going back to the normal sized canvases but uninspired by any of the colors on his pallate besides purple. But whenever he dipped the soft hairs of his brush in the lilac he'd mixed, his hand stilled and his feet made their way out to the living room where Kyungsoo still leaned, staring down at him with shining, wide eyes. He had never gone that far before, when he'd been painting it; he'd forgotten to eat for a whole day and stayed up all night, paint penetrating his shirt and his hair and his sweatpants and Kyungsoo's voice crooning on full blast from the walls of the apartment, filling the air with a haze of grey-purple.

Days blurred together, knitted together by purple and Yixing Yellow. Jongin slept more than he ever had, he watched TV, he read, he even went down to hang out in the lobby for a while one day. He worked out. But he didn't paint.

Finally, he made it to the day before. Time moved at a slow, mocking plod and Jongin knew this was going to be the worst day yet.

He took a shower, making the water as hot as he possibly could without burning himself. His heart was feeling a new sort of constriction it had never felt before, a restlessness, a pull towards something outside his apartment. It had never bothered him that he spent most of his life in the same apartment. He'd always lived his life mostly in his head anyways.

Now he wanted to get out. The fresh nip of air seemed to call to him, but his mind just circled around and around wide eyes and a purple voice. Still, he found himself putting on respectable clothing and even throwing a smile towards the old man at the front desk of his building, slipping earphones in his ear and deciding to skip the bus and walk to wherever he was going. The sun made everything sparkle with color and by and by Jongin walked in a thin fog of patterns of pale pink Saero. 

He didn't neccesarialy work out very much, but the muscles he did have stayed for a long time, so he walked a long way before he felt his legs begin to tire and he really looked around himself. Cute brownstones lined the street and actual trees grew from orderly squares cut in the sidewalk. At least he hadn't wandered into a bad part of town. 

Jinah's hotel was around here. He remembered booking it because it seemed more like a house than hotel, and he'd been hoping she'd bother him less if she felt like he was making an effort to keep him at home. _Jinah called your parents..._ He knew he couldn't confront her directly about it, but he'd never seen her as a  _bad_ person. 

It was only a few blocks to her apartment, and then he was ringing the doorbell and, strangely, fixing his hair. He wasn't so sure about getting her such a home-like hotel anymore—any hotel where you had to ring the doorbell was more like a house of its own. But soon there was a buzz and he slipped inside, where it smelled like cookies and a low green rumble came from down the hall. A small woman half his height came bustling down the hallway towards him, deep lines between her eyebrows betraying years of worry. 

"Who're you looking for, sweetheart?" She asked. 

"Jinah," Jongin replied, not able to help his smile. Her voice was a dark, rich evergreen, a beautiful, textured being of its own. "Kim Jinah."

"Oh!" Said the woman, her small eyes widening a little bit as she looked him over again. "Are you the husband, then? She never mentioned how handsome you were." Then she turned on her heel, a dexterous, lovely little pirouette in the hallway, and lead him back to the hustle and bustle of voices. 

When he entered the room, Jongin felt like he was intruding on something so intimate that he couldn't take another step forward. It wasn't anything vulgar, it wasn't anything he shouldn't have seen—just five or so people, gathered around the TV, eating doritos and laughing. Jinah looked up as they walked in, snuggled deep into an orange armchair. She sat up immediatley as he came in, clearing her throat, the spark in her eyes simmering down like she was pulling a curtain. Jongin's heart sank.

Jinah rose and ushered Jongin back the direction they had come so they could speak alone, not even bothering to introduce Jongin to everyone else. "You're not going to introduce me?" Jongin asked, then kicked himself. That wasn't nice.

"What's up? I know you wouldn't come here if something weren't really wrong," she said, trying to keep her voice to a whisper so the hard neon of it wouldn't show through for him. 

"Well, I wanted to talk about the dinner next week."

"What about it?"

"Well. What do you think? You speak to my parents more often than I do."

"I think it will go great, Jongin." her mind was clearly half on something else, because her voice got a little careless and that disgusting yellow began to appear in splotches. He opened his mouth to respond, but she interrupted him. "I gotta go make a call, nini. I'll be right back."

Jongin sighed, powerless to deny her, and waited with his back against the hallway, listenting to the voices at the end of the hall and the low buzz of the TV and the quiet clank of dishes that said food was being prepared. It smelled delicious. 

Like she promised, Jinah was back in no time, shoving her phone in her back pocket and taking a deep breath before approaching him. "Why don't you come in? I'll introduce you to everyone." She'd reigned her voice in again and spoke in the hushed tones that she knew Jongin could best tolerate. "So what's happening with that singer? Do Kyungsoo?"

Here was the test. "We broke up."

Jinah, for her part, put on a very convincing sad face. It made him question if she'd ever told him the truth in her life. "You broke up? Why? Are you okay?"

"A little worse for wear, but I'll survive. I figure the invitation can't be changed now, so seeing him at the dinner will be awkward, but maybe that's for the best. You know my folks."

Jinah nodded along sympathetically, her eyes shining in what Jongin was sure was silent triumph. He wanted to wipe the sparkle from her face, but he didn't dare. His entire life was hanging in the balance right now. 

True to her word, Jinah did take him to the back room and deposit him on the couch between an incredibly tall, thin man and a woman Jongin could only assume was also a model. She was much younger than anyone else and the woman who'd answered the door slipped her pieces of sushi occasionally. She introduced herself as Tzuyzu. He stayed for much longer than he thought he would, watching their voices dance and mingle in facination. He hadn't been able to observe many multi-faceted conversations for very long—not ones that he could stand—but when he could, it was better than anything he could ever paint. Five minutes could have passed. Five hours could have passed. At some point dinner was ready and the old lady asked him if he wanted to stay. He shook his head. He should have been overstimulated long ago. But, there was synesthesia for you. Never predictable.

He took a taxi home, staring at himself in the elevator mirror, wondering how anyone could call him handsome when he looked so haggard. When he approached his apartment, the door was standing slightly ajar and Jongin immediatley went on high-alert, his mind circling back to when his apartment had been broken into. Everything seemed to be in place at first glance;  _maybe I just left the door open on accident,_ he thought. He hung his jacket up and shuffled into the living room.

He stopped dead.

Kyungsoo was gone. Gone was that constant presence that had taken a whole wall of the apartment. The apartment felt wounded without it, like it bled the presence of purple.

He called Yixing, who'd travelled to Shanghai yesterday to negotiate a sale. Yixing said he could stay in his apartment, but that "calling the police is up to you. I haven't seen the piece personally, but I know how often you churn this stuff out. You have no idea how many paintings I have locked away just to keep the market competitive. We might be able to find whoever it was on our own, since it's probably an art thief. I'm on my way back right now."

His stomach roiled and he tried to keep the swell of emotion down. _Just until the dinner._  He'd been repeating it to himself all week. But it was tomorrow, and by now the phrase had become a mantra to Jongin.  _Just until the dinner._

He should probably have called the police. Instead, he took his toothbrush from his bathroom and went over to Yixing's apartment, fleeing his own like it was a crime scene. It really was, after all, just—whoever had done it knew him. This hadn't been a break-in.

_Just until the dinner._

* * *

Author's note: I know it doesn't seem like it, but a very hard chapter to write, plot-wise. Keep leaving comments, every one influences me and makes me a better writer! Next update's gonna be a good one ;) 


	11. The Passion Factory

“I hope you’re enjoying yourself there.” Baekhyun reclined all the way back in his seat, giving Kyungsoo a look through the glass in the recording studio.

“Hm?”

“Exactly.” Baekhyun huffed. “This really is a good song, Kyungsoo. If you told me what’s up I might be able to help you. Is it too many shows?”

“Too many shows? No, the shows are fine, I guess. I’ve been looking forward to this all week, actually.” _You have no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to this._

“I’m flattered,” Baekhyun responded. “But if you want me to believe you it’d be nice if you didn’t space out on me quite so often. It’s like you’re depressed or something.”

Kyungsoo looked at Baekhyun through the glass a moment, his eyes catching the low light of the lamp and the dim blue of the dials on the soundboard. Baekhyun was strange when he was serious; his mouth dipped into a tiny frown and he became nervous, as if he were doing something anethema. Being _serious._

Kyungsoo had been in his head or in another country for long enough that he’d forgotten the power of a serious Baekhyun. “Actually,” He swallowed. “Actually I had some lyrics I wanted to bounce off you, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.” his voice echoed through the microphone, smoother and clearer cut than it sounded in real life.

“You have _lyrics_?” Baekhyun’s eyebrows drew together. “You’ve never said a single thing to me about lyrics before. You should have told me right when you got the bug to write something, I would have booked us a writing session instead. Come on over.”

Kyungsoo opened the door between the recording booth and the studio and sat nervously on the edge of his chair, wheeling over to his backpack. “You’re gonna call me crazy,” he mumbled with a small smile as he reached into the backpack and brought out a thin notebook, all the pages peeling and clearly written all over.

Baekhyun raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been busy.”

Kyungsoo just shrank into his shoulders a little bit and brought out another small notebook, equally full, and then another. Three in total. Baekhyun was having trouble hiding his astonishment.

“Kyungsoo,” he said, his voice hushed, his mouth dipping downwards. “Kyungsoo, you must have been writing constantly for the past week to fill notebooks like this.” He reached out a hand, picking up the first notebook like it was some sort of prized piece of art, flipping to the first page and scanning it quickly.

“It’s just something to distract me.” Kyungsoo replied, watching Baekhyun’s face intently.

“What did you do to distract yourself before, I wonder?” Baekhyun mumbled. “What the fuck _happened?”_

It was a good question. He’d watched random videos on his phone, he’d rehearsed in his head, he’d answered emails. There was usually something to do. He’d stared into space a lot, letting his mind unwind from its normal state of manufactured frenzy. But now the frenzy didn’t just go away when he took a deep breath; then, a different kind of preoccupation came on, and it had honey-brown eyes and glowing tan skin.

So, to keep his itching fingers from texting Kai, he’d begun writing whatever came into his head down. The first notebook he’d borrowed from Manager Hong, who’d given it to him incredulously along with a pen. After the show that night, instead of passing out, Kyungsoo had asked for a pen again, producing the same notebook. From then on his managers began carrying around extra pens and even extra notebooks.

It wasn’t the only change. He’d totally missed that Manager Hong got a girlfriend a week ago, although he was sure he’d told Kyungsoo at some point. He laughed at things he wasn’t supposed to on variety shows, uncontrolled giggles that were noticeably different from his normal laugh. Everyone knew his laugh for things he was _supposed_ to laugh at. Laughing was a skill he had as an idol. Now sometimes he just stared blankly when the MC said something with a knowing smile, expecting at least a chuckle.

Kyungsoo shrugged. “What do you think happened, Baek?”

“I think you fell in love.” Baekhyun played with the stressed pages idly, his delicate fingers too thin for the rings on them. There was a silence as the words dripped from the air.

“Have you ever felt like half the passion of music is manufactured? I mean, I think that might even be the goal for some companies, for some people.” Kyungsoo chewed his lips, his eyes running over the words in the second notebook.

“Ah, yes.” Baekhyun released the page and brought up his legs to sit cross-legged in the chair. “The passion factory, that’s us. Look, it hasn’t bothered you before. Taeyeon always says it’s about compartmentalizing. It’s a shame you don’t have a stage name or something. You’re all mixed up with your public persona. You never have been before, so it’s never been a problem.”

“I guess.” Kyungsoo frowned. _Mixed up with his public persona._ “Baekhyun-ah, do you think I could leave you with these for the night? I forgot there’s somewhere I need to be.” Baekhyun looked up from the notebook. Already he was reaching for his phone, undoubtedly to call Chanyeol in for an emergency writing session.

“Mm-hmm.” Baekhyun didn’t look at him as he shrugged his jacket on and zipped up his backpack, but Kyungsoo felt his eyes on the back of his neck as he left. It occurred to him that he’d never seen Baekhyun so concerned about him.

Perhaps he’d just never noticed.

The cobblestones shone smooth under the orange lights, just like they had what seemed like ages ago. There was a different band today, not as good as it had been when he’d come with Kai, but smiles lit everyone’s face just the same. Kyungsoo felt his chest loosen as he walked up to the dancers and slipped between them, clumsy at first but learning quickly; after all, if anything, he knew how to practice. He knew how to learn quickly.

He didn’t introduce himself once, and no one asked who he was. Hands and hips and asses brushed against him but it was never more than a passing touch, a quick burst of warmth and pressure. Kyungsoo had never really considered himself a dancer. The band was becoming tired, the singer taking breaks for eight measures at a time. Kyungsoo drifted towards the fringes of the dancers until he was finally next to the stage.

“Can I?” He asked, pointing at the microphone, standing above the swirl of the crowd. Up on the stage, he could see a fair ways down the river, and it rippled merrily as if inviting him to enjoy himself. The woman who’d been singing shrugged, handing him the microphone, looking ready to seize it if Kyungsoo was just some drunken bum who couldn’t sing. _We Are The Tide._ He had no idea where he’d heard the song before, but he knew it like the river was whispering the words into his ear, and the masses shifted to dance along with his voice. He smiled as he sang.

“Do Kyungsoo! Do Kyungsoo!” The shouts came from the street and Kyungsoo’s head snapped around. A few flashes and he was off the stage, cursing wildly. But they’d surely seen him. He wanted to kick himself—did he truly believe there was anywhere sacred, anywhere where he could be someone else forever?

This was why he wasn’t talking to Kai. It wasn’t for any other reason. It was because Kyungsoo had never gotten to know who he would have been if he’d been anonymous to the world. He didn’t want to take that knowledge away from anybody. Like Baekhyun had said, he was all mixed up with his public persona. Hopelessly mixed up.

“Kyungsoo!” this shout came from the other direction, from the docks. Kyungsoo wanted to laugh. Yixing stood with his feet wide apart, waving with wide, exaggerated gestures. Kyungsoo quickly gave the microphone back to the singer and scrambled down and through the people down to the dock, where a strong breeze blew his hair back and made him squint.

“What the fuck are _you_ doing here?” He asked, fighting the urge to laugh.

“I’m watching over you!” replied Yixing loudly so he could be heard over the wind. He looked paler than usual but a smile lit his face in the dim light of the moon and the streetlights. “You might not be able to see Kai, but what’s to keep me?”

So Yixing saved him from being discovered. When he got a text from Kai the next day, Kyungsoo just couldn’t resist. Lounging against the wall, waiting for Baekhyun to be done fiddling with whatever he was fiddling with, he snapped a quick picture and sent it before he could second-guess himself. His stomach dropped when he got the texts after that, of course, but he turned his phone all the way off so he wouldn’t respond. He had a cause. It made him sing even sweeter.

* * *

 

The sky was in a misty mood, rolling with puffy grey clouds. Kai’s parents’ house was not what he’d expected. Spending most of his time in cities, Kyungsoo’s concept of a nice house was a penthouse suite with a view of the city, like Kai’s—although Kai’s apartment was rather small since there was only one person living in it.

This house was situated on a hill and could more accurately be called a mansion. A meandering driveway, intricately cobbled led up the slope to the steps which eventually led to a large doorway. It looked like a fortress.

Kyungsoo was torn between staying in the car and calling Kai to see if he’d let him through the gate and getting out of the car himself to try to figure it out. He was dressed in his finest suit, freshly ironed, and his stomach was doing backflips and contortions gymnasts would envy.

He decided to get out; he felt closed in in the car and the air outside was sharp and crisp, threatening rain. A light wind played with his styled hair. The driver leaned over to ask if he should stay; Kyungsoo told him to come back in a few hours and wait. Then he was alone in front of the imposing cast-iron gate, looking up at a modern castle. It was the sort of place chaebols would hire him to play at for a huge party.

“Kyungsoo.” His name was whispered behind him, low and deep, making him shiver and his heart jump. He whirled to see Kai standing behind him, under a tree by the side of the road, looking eerily similar to how he’d looked the first time they’d met at the art exhibition.

It made Kyungsoo wonder whether it had all happened: the excessive fainting and the dancing and the painting. Kai strode towards him with long steps, all at once enveloping him in his scent and his warmth, his warm, soft hands cupping Kyungsoo’s face delicately.

“Hi,” whispered Kyungsoo, sure his eyes were as wide as ever. Kai looked like he wanted to kiss him, but instead he just took Kyungsoo’s hand in his and gave it a firm squeeze.

“Come on,” Kai said, pulling Kyungsoo towards the shade from which he’d emerged. Kyungsoo followed on willing feet, stopping Kai once it seemed like their newly-shined shoes were in danger of falling victim to the mud.

“I thought the dinner was up there.” He pointed to the house.

“It is.” Kai’s features were unusually drawn, not sleepy, not happy-go-lucky like they usually were. He looked uncomfortable. Nervous. Well, Kyungsoo supposed they were in the same boat there. “But... I have... I haven’t told you even half of my story. I—told you what you asked about, but I’ve realized that that’s just—it isn’t going to be enough for this night.”

Kyungsoo swallowed, holding tight to Kai’s hands, the chill wind not seeming quite as friendly.

“Twenty-two years ago, a boy was born named Kim Jongin. He had synesthesia, he was gay, and he had a penchant for not allowing unfair things to go unnoticed.” Kai wasn’t looking at Kyungsoo, but instead over his head at some invisible child long ago. “His parents figured all three of those things could be fixed, so they attacked them all at once, for eighteen years.” Kai’s eyes flickered, and he looked down at Kyungsoo.

“You don’t think I’m crazy, do you? You don’t think there’s something... just... _wrong_ with my mind?”

“I--I don’t know...” Kyungsoo’s voice was rough at first and had to clear his throat. This wasn’t the way he’d expected the night to begin. He’d been prepared for battle and instead he’d been given a glimpse of the broken pieces swirling behind Kai’s eyes. “I never viewed you different because of how you see the world. It never even occurred to me to—to do so.”

Kai was looking at him intently, studying his face, staring into his soul. “I could swear...” he trailed off, then began again. “I could swear my mind chose you without me even knowing. You’re kinder to me than anyone has ever been, and you don’t even consider me handicapped or superpowered.”

Kyungsoo frowned. He was the kindest person Kai had ever met? Ever? Kyungsoo could name a hundred people who were probably kinder than him. It hadn’t ever been an adjective he’d used to describe himself.

“Kim Jongin died officially on December 22, four years ago, after costing his parents a veritable fortune to ‘fix’. I just—I want you to understand how extreme my parents can be, before you meet them yourself. It wasn’t enough for them to, to cut me off, to disown me, to pretend I didn’t exist. They said I drowned while we were sailing. I was a kid, I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t—and this is funny—” Kai smiled ruefully—“I didn’t know whether it was weird to cry at my own funeral.”

"Is that why Jinah calls you Jongin?”

“Technically, her husband is dead.”

“Wouldn’t she get your... whatever was left to you?” Kyungsoo furrowed his eyebrows. None of it made sense.

“Here, you have to give her credit. It was before she figured out I could paint. She followed me after death, even though the saying only goes ‘till death do us part’. She didn’t see a cent of my parents’ money. It was amazing. I’m not sure I could have done it. She married me for that money. She really did.” He swallowed, his eyes getting far away again. “But we’ve all changed since then.”

“Kai, tell me this—you still want me to call you Kai, right?” Kyungsoo hoped he was guessing right. If it was him, he wouldn’t want to have to remember all that because of a name. He wished he could start fresh, with a new name. Kai nodded, a small smile of appreciation appearing at the corner of his mouth. “Are you sure you even want to do this? They can’t introduce you as their son, right? You have to be somebody they’re just acquainted with.”

“I want them to see how sane I am,” Kai replied, his jaw working. “They called me insane for so long.” his voice cracked a little.

“Ok then.” Kyungsoo smiled up at him. _You have no idea what’s waiting for us,_ he wanted to say. But he didn’t want to add more stress to Kai’s plate. “Shall we?” He turned to walk back towards the gate, and yelped when Kai drew him back and wrapped his arms around Kyungsoo, bringing their faces together.

“Thanks for coming,” Kai whispered, his breath hot and minty. “I don’t know—you make me sane.” He was shaking a little bit, Kyungsoo realized. What it must have taken to tell him his story. Kyungsoo smiled, wrapping his arms around Kai’s warm waist.

“You’re welcome,” he said softly. He could almost see the purple leaving his mouth in a puff, how Kai saw it, how Kai painted it. Kai kissed him once, briefly, just a press of the lips, and then released him altogether, beginning to stride towards the gate on his own, his tall figure imposing against the grey background.

The house was all lit up for the night. Kyungsoo rang the door and there was a humming moment of tension as they waited, and then the door was pulled in and a tall woman stood before them with a pinched mouth and hair pulled tightly back. “This will be Kim Kai and—well, you must be Do Kyungsoo.”

Kyungsoo could see the resemblance: Kai’s mother had the same ears, the same chin as Kai. They were similarly built. He bowed to her, putting on a smile. “A pleasure to meet you, Ms.Yeong.” Kai bowed too, and she cast a glance over them as they filed into the house. Booming laughter echoed from the dining room.

The light was bright and warm, emanating from a huge crystal chandelier high above them; the ceiling was a few stories high in the dining room. Jinah lounged at one end of the table beautifully, her hair shiny and her dark blue dress flattering, her phone lighting her face in an eerie glow. A thin man sat at the head of the table, dressed sharply with salt-and-pepper hair. Next to him sat a portly, balding man dressed impeccably, his glasses shining as they reflected the candlelight from the table.

Kyungsoo stopped short at the entrance to the dining room, feeling Kai and Ms. Yeong come up behind him.

Now _he_ was the one shaking, and he _hated_ that he’d been right. All at once he felt terribly for Kai and angry at the people who’d put in the effort to try to do this to him.

“ _You,_ ” he said, his voice low and steady. The balding man looked up from his conversation and paled when he saw Kyungsoo.

The room fell silent as everybody looked at everybody else.

The balding man stood, smoothing his coat nervously. “Mr. Kyungsoo. I didn’t expect to see you here.” his voice was warm and inviting, just asking the room to trust him, to believe whatever came out of that jovial mouth.

It was the perfect voice for a professional grifter.

* * *

Author's note: Intrigue at last! Hope you've had your fill of romance, we're about to get real plot-focused for a while here! What do you guys think is going on? What does Kyungsoo think is going on? I love love love comments and subscriptions!


	12. Burn Them All

"Is there a problem, Mr. Kyungsoo?" Ms. Yeong stepped gingerly around him and practically floated across the floor to stand next to her husband, who hadn't risen from his seat. Jinah's phone was off and she was watching the exchange with a carefully blank expression. Kyungsoo's head spun with options. He still didn't fully want Kai to understand what was going on, but from what he could tell, the night could only get uglier. Kwangseok didn't have that shine in his eyes he got when he was sure of something, or when he felt secure that the room believed who he was. 

He didn't have that shine for a reason; Kyungsoo had almost given him full rights to all his music before he'd found out that the only reason Kwangseok was allowed to get so close was because his company  _knew_  he was just a grifter, and let him get close to Kyungsoo in order to obtain evidence against him.

Kwangseok got away anyway. Needless to say Kyungsoo was just a step away from punching the man in the face. "Yes," he replied, his jaw clenched. "Please get the goddamn grifter out of the house and we can get on with whatever buisness you had planned."

Of course, it was possible Kwangseok was playing them all: Kai, his parents, and Jinah. But Kyungsoo just doubted it, and the twitch in Kai's father's face told him everything he needed to know. Kwangseok slid his eyes towards Kai's father under the pretense of polishing his glasses.  _Is it the fucking nineteenth century?_ Kyungsoo felt Kai's breath on the back of his neck.

Kwangseok bowed slightly, clearing his throat. "I apologize for intruding in your buisness. I didn't realize Mr. Kyungsoo would be here." He turned to Kai's father. "I believe you'll find sufficient clause in our contract. I hope everything goes well."

"You hope everything goes well?" Kyungsoo repeated, still not able to fathom that this was happening. But the grifter was already slipping past him, his cologne making Kyungsoo fight to not wrinkle his nose. Mind flooded with adrenaline, Kyungsoo turned immediatley to Kai's parents. Ms. Yeong was leaning down and her jaw was working next to his ear. His expression stayed stone-cold, his slightly drooping, hooded eyes hiding any expression. 

"What was that?" Kai's rumbled under his breath, still slightly behind him.

"It was a  _grifter,_ " Kyungsoo replied, his quiet voice betraying a little more of his consternation. "Trust me, you don't want to be mixed up with that. Do you... do you want to leave?" Kai might have said very little about it, but Kyungsoo knew that whatever guest had been lined up had been the least of Kai's worrys about the night.

"Like... trying to steal stuff? From my parents?"

"You heard him." He'd had a contract. He'd been  _working_ for them. The only logical conclusion was that Kai's parents had hired Kwangseok to lure Kai into some sort of meeting. 

"So are we gonna eat or just sit here and speak all hush-hush and then go home and plan the next ten moves of chess?" Jinah sat up in her chair, her eyes snapping around the room, equally judgemental of both couples. "Because that's not what I came for."

"What's going on, Mr. Dayung, if I'm not needed then I can just leave," said Kai, finally coming in front of Kyungsoo to stand at the other head of the table, his hands sitting easily in his pockets, looking perfectly put together.

"No!" It was the first time Dayung had spoken, but he spoke sharply and immediatley, his voice even deeper than Kai's. 

"Please," followed Yeong, gesturing to a chair for Kyungsoo to sit in. The table was already set as if for a wedding dinner, with multiple cups, mulitple knives, plates, spoons, forks, bowls, bread, salad, water. Kyungsoo and Kai sat down in almost the same movement. Jinah had put her phone away and everyone seemed to be expecting Dayung to speak.

"You've climbed significantly in your short career," Dayung began, folding his hands as Yeong slid fluidly into her own seat and motioned for a server to begin pouring wine. "It's incredibly impressive, and it was kind of you to attend. Unfortunatley, it appears Mr. Kyungsoo has known Mr. Kwangseok previously, but it isn't important. What is important is the principle. You've gotten very far based on anonymity, and we recognize that, we recognize that. The Kiwi Foundation, however, has built itself on a platform of  _transparency_. So we've called this, well, you could call it a meeting of sorts, to try to reevaluate how much farther anonymity can get you versus how much farther than that a name can get you."

Kyungsoo could see where Kai got his eloquence. Kai's face looked tight, like it had when he'd had a headache coming back from the concert. Somehow Kyungsoo could tell that Kai wasn't liking the color of his father's voice. "I have a name," Kai replied curtly. "I also have a manager, and I'm capable of hiring consultants for that sort of thing. It appears that I could be very concerned about who you brought in to have a conversation with about me—a conversation, for the record, which is totally inappropriate."

Dayung clearly didn't have a response, but he opened his mouth all the same, his words cut off swiftly by Jinah's high voice. "Look, that was just because they thought they'd have to prove that this was important. Sure, he wasn't a real buyer, but he also thought it would be better if you gave the world a name. A real name, Jongin. That people would recognize. It'd get press and everything."

"I could get press all on my own if I just gave them a face," Kai responded, raising an eyebrow. Jinah, shocked looked from Kai to Kyungsoo and back to Kai again, suprised that he hadn't commented on her calling him Jongin instead of Kai. Kyungsoo had to stifle a laugh.

"You'd get more if you were Kim Jongin," his mother said. Her voice was smooth and Kai's eyes snapped to her immediatley, softening from their previous iciness. _What a seductive offer,_ Kyungsoo thought. He hadn't known Kai for very long, but he knew his life, and he knew that it wasn't just solitary, it meant no family, no past, no hometown, no nothing. There, sitting in front of him, was the offer to get it all back in the snap of a finger, an  _oops! We made a mistake! He's not dead, he's right here! He became a painter instead!_

And his eyes were soft when he looked at his mother. Kyungsoo almost thought he would do it until he opened his mouth.

"Eomma, one of my paintings went missing recently. I'm still an amateur in some respects, and one of the is I, for some crazy reason, though a lock and the security at the front desk of my apartment would be enough to keep that from happening. Would you have any advice in that vein?"

"If something's stolen from you, you either get it back or you get a better one of whatever it is," Dayung said sharply.

"Come on, I'm sure it will turn up," Jinah said, her voice cracking casually.

"See that's what I'm assuming, especially beause it went missing after I visited  _you_ at  _your_ apartment that  _I'm_ paying for. And, since I'm speaking to a money crowd, it might interest you all that that painting could have paid for my comfortable living, and the comforable living of a thousand poor starving children, for life."

"Look, I'm not the one who stole it, if that's what you're suggesting." Jinah narrowed her eyes, ripping her bread roll open from the middle. 

"Someone fucking did."

"Jongin." His father, and all of them really, had dropped all pretense of not knowing one another, and Kyungsoo could already see old patterns of arguing bubbling up in the defiant eyeroll the  _jongin_ elicited from Kai.

"First of all, I'm a goddamn adult and I may swear whenever the fuck I want. Second of all, my name isn't Jongin anymore, or did you convienently erase that from your memory just becuase I made a little money?"

"We always knew you were going to be successful," Kai's mother said softly. "You just needed to be cut off from us for a little while, and we from you. Look how far you've come!"

"Cut off! It was a rolls royce," Kai said his voice like knives hanging menacingly just beneath the chandalier high above them. "And the seats were black leather, and I had one duffel bag, and I watched you bury an empty coffin and give a speech about how you had to move on from me."

"Oh Jongin, you know me," Dayung said, his voice fraying velvet. "I go overboard on everyting. It's always worked, not because of luck, but because anything half-assed isn't worth the effort.

Kai was shaking his head. "Excuse my intrusion," Kyungsoso interjected, and immediatley Kai looked up at him, his face relaxing a little in gratitude. "But reliving the past, especially in front of guests, is rude, at least where I'm from. I'm curious. Why now? A few months ago, you reach out to your dead son and invite him over like you're inviting him to enjoy all the benefits of being part of the family. It--"

"I was suprised he brought you," Jinah said, finishing her bread. She was the only one eating, and she was the skinniest one there. Ironic. Her voice was different than it had before, softer and less confrontatinoal. "I don't know anyone he's trusted with anything excet with S-- except with a few people. Look, I thought this was the best thing. My husband needs to get away from painting. What do you think? Wouldn't a little fame be good for him?" 

Kyungsoo wanted to shout at her that no, fame wouldn't be good for anyone except an exceptional few. "Jinah, do you really want to know what I think?" Kyungsoo raised and eyebrow. "I think that in order for contraband art to be sold, the buyer needs to trust that the artist and the organization behind them won't rat them out. No one's going to buy something if someone could identify it and have them arrested on a dime. I think the main purpose of contraband art is networking, and the ability to move money between individuals without pesky things like  _taxes_."

"I think you have my painting," Kai finished for him, looking his father right in the eye. "I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt right now, and I'm going to ask you again. Do you have my painting?" Kai's chest was moving up and down a little faster now and he licked his lips. 

"Actually, we found it." His mother murmered. Dayung stayed stone-faced, but she seemed a little nervous, wetting her lips similiar to her son. "It was sold to us for something like two thousand dollars, and so we've kept it safe."

Kai's chair made an echoing, sickening crack as it fell against the floor when Kai stood suddenly. "Where is it, then? Did you put a nice little bow on it for whatever cold sick immoral fuck wants to look at Kyungsoo's face all day?" There went the pretense that he and Kyungsoo were just acquaintences. "How many others do you have? Did you buy those too? I bet you have Zitao, I bet you have Jongdae, I bet you have fucking _Junmyeon_. Do you have Junmyeon too? Do you want to keep him? Hang him on your wall?" But he didn't stay to hear the answer. He was already stalking out of the dining room, moving into the living room and then out of sight of the other four. A slow, silent few seconds passed. "I know  _it's in here!_ " There was a crash and that's what jerked Kyungsoo into action, bolting up and half running, half walking after Kai. 

As he moved through the house he watched Kai get increasingly distressed. At first things were just rearranged, then droors were left open, then there was a chair on its side, then, through the door to the study, Kyngsoo saw paper everywhere and the remnants of a light bulb. 

Jinah flew past him like a gazelle, her long legs passing him in one stride and then dissappearing around the corner to the stairs. Kyungsoo swore and began to jog after her, his heart pounding. The house was eerily silent for a moment and then there was a shriek of " _Jongin!"_

_"Jongin! JONGIN!"_

Kyungsoo rounded the corner to the master bedroom, a room at least as big as Kai's entire apartment, and caught his breath, leaning against the door frame. That painting took him by suprise all over again, as if he'd never seen it in his life, his own eyes staring back at him, his skin glowing, and Jinah and Kai touseling beneath it. Slowly Kyungsoo's eyes drank in the rest of the room. Paintings were leaning everywhere,  _Kai's_ paintings, in various states of disarray. Some had ragged slashes through them, some had giant gaping holes kicked in them, and for some, the frame itself had been cracked in two.

 _Jongin was destroying his own paintings_.

Beneath the painting of him, Jinah was trying to keep Kai from making a huge slash in Kyungsoo's chin with a very large knife he must have lifted from the kitchen. One of her hands was locked around the wrist of the hand holding the knife and the other was on Kai's other hand which was pulling at her hair and looked very painful.

" _Jongin!_ " Her shrieks were painful even to his ears, but they made Kai crazy, a silent, energy-saturated monster that scared Kyungsoo. But he didn't want Kai to destroy that painting; not that one, because it hadn't done anything wrong, and it wouldn't punish Kai's parents so much as Kai himself. 

Jinah was strong; she managed to keep the knife well away from the painting and sweep her foot under Kai's legs, bringing him to the flor and then tugging him away from the painting like it was something holier than her own life, which Kyungsoo worried for considering the size of the knife. 

"STOP!" His voice echoed aorund the room and mocked him as he ran to where they struggled, deflecting off them without effect. " _STOP!"_  he thundered again, but Jinah was doing something to Kai's wrist and then she was the one with the knife and trying to wriggle away from Kai, shreiking at the top of her lungs the whole time. Kyungsoo tried to get a hold of Kai, tried to yell at him, whisper to him, talk him down, but it was all underscored by Jinah's awful shriekng as he clawed long red marks down her legs as she got farther away from him. 

They were a team, him and Jinah, although Jinah was more than half the problem, trying to get Kai away from the painting, away from the knife... and Kyungsoo's mind spiraled... away from this house, out of this country, to somewhere warm where all the colors were sure to be beautiful and vibrant. Finally, with heaving breaths, Kai gave up on Jinah and she fled to stand in front of all the other broken paintings, her chest heaving and her eyes wild.

"Jongin, listen to me! _Listen to me_! You don't want to do this! Screw the folks over, whatever! If it won't make you happy, what the fuck ever!-- Jongin!"

"My  _name_ ," Kai roared, "Is  _Kai!_ " And he lunged at her again. She moved off to the side, towards the door, with another involuntary _"Jongin!"_ and Kyungsoo couldn't hope to hold him back. Kai moved totally detatched from his customary grace, as if his vision were clouded red and some absurd concoction of drugs pumped through his blood. He'd found something as he'd risen on the side table, and when Kyungsoo realized what it was he shouted himself. Kai struck frantically at the matchbox, getting a flame after the tenth try and holding it up triumphantly, a crazed smile taking over his face.

He threw the packet to Kyungsoo, who had to dive out of his path towards Kai to catch it. When Kyungsoo reached him, Kai dragged him forward by putting a big hand on the back of his neck, his breathing heavy and labored and his pupils looking like pinpoints. "Come on, baby," he whispered, letting Kyungsoo go and dropping the first match, " _Burn them all._ "

Kyungsoo just had the first match stamped out when Kai struck a second one, and this one caught onto a canvas rather quickly, sending up black wisps of smoke as it caught. Kyungsoo went to put it out, hearing himself shouting, but Kai held him back, his arms scarily strong. " _Burn them all, no one deserves these, especially not_ them," he repeated. He swayed in front of Kyungsoo and Kyungsoo stopped screaming, his hand shooting up automatically to keep Kai standing, but Jinah shouting could be heard screaching again at the growing fire at their feet.

Then Kai tripped over his own feet and there was a whirling moment when Kai seemed to flail in the air, his stomach thrust out first, his head whipped back, his suit dirty, tha time stopped.

Kai fell with an inhuman  _crunch,_ his body collapsing in on itself, and after a few seconds he let ot a long groan. Jinah made to go to him but the look Kyungsoo sent her had her cowering. " _Out_." It was a command, and she seemed perfectly willing to follow it, her footsteps echoing down the hallway. Kyungsoo wondered, in the back of his mind, where the fuck Kai's parents were. 

At first touch, Kai's back shuddered and the man opened like a petal to a honeybee, uncurling until he lay flat on his back, a weaker groan escaping his mouth as Kyungsoo shivered in horror at what he saw. Protruding from Kai's abdomen sat a broken piece of wooden frame, connecting with his body in a bloody, chipped mess. Kai's head slowly lolled back and his eyes looked glassy and if Kyungsoo hadn't been panicking, he really was now. 

 _Call 911._ He fumbled in his pockets for his phone and punched in the number, setting it on speaker and then taking some piece of clothing from the bed and tentatively pressing it against where wood met flesh, wincing at the blood that bubbled up and the even weaker groan that practically died in Kai's throat. His eyes were closed now.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"Yeah, th—this guy—Kai has um—there's fucking wood coming out of his stomach? Like a huge piece of frame for, for like, for a painting?" Kyungsoo's voice shook and each scentene ended in a question. "It's in his fucking stomach I think he's unconcious? And I think there's a fire?"

"What's your location?" The voice was cool and impersonal and intimidating and made Kyungsoo's mind go blank with fear for a moment. "Fucking hell, where else would I be?"

* * *

Author's Note: yes. i am... im sorry.  Comments and subscriptions are much loved... does everything make sense now? Well... almost everything... let's see what Jinah has to say...


	13. A Note

Kai had one memory from when he was a baby, just born, when everything was wet and cold and bright and the universe had just expanded a thousandfold. He hadn't wanted to open his eyes. He'd known, somehow, that once he opened his eyes, there would never be darkness again. He could feel the colors pressing around him, licking their lips and waiting for his eyelids to crack open and let them in.

His psychologist in the eigth grade explained to him that it was impossible to remember anything before you were two. Kai's parents had been trying the supportive, psychological approach to his synesthesia, and thought if they could send him to enough hours of therapy he would eventually have a breakthrough and be fixed.

Maybe he was a freak of nature. But when he opened his eyes, and his mother fairly screamed in relief, he was assulted, and, as babies do, he'd cried. Perhaps partly because of the overstimulation but also because he was mourning the darkness.

The same worry burned in him now, as his mind slowly rose from its stressed sleep. He was first aware of his body and its weight in the bed, and then the feeling of the sheets against his fingertips, and then the silence in his room.  _There._  A slight rustle of paper, a slight shift of bodyweight that wasn't his. His mind rebelled and tried to bury back down, unconcious where it was comfortable, but it couldn't; he couldn't.

His eyelids tickled his cheeks a little as they fluttered, blurred brightness licking his mind. Slowly, as if he could feel it, his pupils contracted, the light focusing into shapes and colors, as he slowly woke up. The air in the room was stale but warm. He moved his body up the pillows, his muscles aching and something dragging against his stomach.

Kyungsoo looked up from his book, the light from the window hitting half his flushed face--he'd had it in one hand, curled up in the chair next to the bed. When he saw Kai looking at him, his lips popped open, his eyes widening, his eyebrows migrating up his forehead a little. Kai felt a slow swell of bliss, of total happiness and comfort, just sitting there, his mind still fuzzy, staring at Kyungsoo in the sunlight as the singer was about to speak.

"Hi." It was no more than a breath, a puff of air, but Kai had to look up to keep the tears from his eyes when he saw the french lilac, all on its own, in that room. Kai didn't know what Kyungsoo had had to do to be there when he woke up. After all, Kyungsoo wasn't next of kin or affiliated to him in any way. But then again, Kai's list of official next of kin had dwindled down to only Jinah.

"Hi," he replied, his voice scratchy. Kyungsoo unfolded himself, leaving his book facedown on the chair behind him, and dissappeared from the room a moment, returning with a cup of water. He approached the bed again carefully, his eyes shining in what looked like relief. Kai opened his mouth to speak again but Kyungsoo smiled and just brought the cup to his lips.

"Drink," he murmered, and Kai reflexively did as he was told. The cold water hitting his gut suddenly brought the pain from his stomach into focus, and he winced, tugging at the sheets to try to see.

"It's not as bad as it seems," supplied Kyungsoo. "It didn't hit any vital organs."

Kai relaxed back into the bed, unused to someone being so attuned to what he needed and what he wanted to know. "Why are you here, then?" he asked. "You  _must_ have some kind of... some kind of scedule or something. How long have you been waiting for me to wake up? How long was I asleep?"

Kyungsoo shook his head. "You were only asleep through the night and part of the morning." He ran a hand through his stressed hair. "It really did look worse than it was, I guess. But there's a shitstorm watiting for us outside that door." He chewed on his lip. As Kai looked closer, he noticed dark shadows under his boyfriend's eyes and a tense, trembling jaw. He looked flush with exhaustion and the stuffy heat of the room.

He swallowed. "Babe," he began. "Would you open the window? It's stuffy."

"But... the noise..." A small hand found Kai's on the bedheets. "I wanted it to be just my voice for a while, I thought that might be nice..." 

Kai made a small sound of appreciation in the back of his throat. His heart ached; no one had ever been nearly so kind, not even his psychologists. "I don't want you to pass out," he replied gently. 

Kyungsoo's eyes widened, but he padded over to the window and opened it after only a minimal amount of effort. A gentle breeze rolled through the window and Kyungsoo swayed a little with it, closing his eyes before coming back over to sit next to Kai on the bed. "So," he said gently. "Jinah went back to her apartment, but she said she'd come if called. I called Yixing back, he'll be here in a few minutes. He's already picked up your painting from your parent's house, and whatever else was salvageable. Did you know that your mother and Jinah carried that painting out of the burning house? Umm... what else is there." his eyes were skipping back and forth as he ran through a list clearly fraying and inked and crumpled in his mind. "Jinah... seemed actually sorry. I don't know. There's some stuff we still have to sort out."

"When is this going to heal?" Kai put a hand on the dull ache in his stomach.

"Oh! You should be able to move around sometime tomrrow, and after that it's just a matter of not hitting it and stuff, to my understanding. I mean, don't go--go running or anything, but--" Kai smirked to himself. No sex for a few more days, and this beautiful angel all his.

"You still haven't told me how you got out of your scedules."

"Simple." Kyungsoo smiled sheepishly, sharing some secret that was delicious as long as it came from those lips."I'm sick and in the hospital with a wound to my abdomen. I used to come here for IV drips when I was working nonstop so I know most of the staff really well. I'm going to try this new thing where I separate work from personal life."

Kai eyed his boyfriend skeptically, reaching out an arm to wind around Kungoso's waist, nestling them both into the bed. "Do me one more favor, then?"

"Anything."

"Sing us both to sleep."

Kyungsoo looked up at Kai with mild suprise. "Kai?" Kai loooked down, and Kyungsoo grinned,

"There it is."

"There what is?"

"The whole time I've known you, whenever I've said your name, there's been this split-second hsitation, like I'm saying your fake name and it takes you a second to remember that your name is Kai. But now, it's gone. Gold star, you." And bless him, his nose scrunched up and there were stars in his eyes as he looked up at Kai. Then Kyungsoo cleared his throat.

And a single lilac note stretched out between them, making a horizon of smooth sound that kept going until Kai's eyes slipped shut, and he dreamed about color instead of blackness, Kyungsoo's warmth pressed comfortingly against him.

* * *

Author's note: can you believe it's almost over? Here's a short chapter to heal you all from the hell I put you through last chapter. I'm getting nostalgic, this story has been so great to write. What kind of ending is your favorite? Sweet? Triumphant? Sexy? Smutty? Let me know, I love comments!


	14. The Lilac Muse

"They're _what_?" Kai's eyes flew wide as he stared at Yixing incredulously. "I thought it was Jinah! Or my parents, or them working together, or whatever?"

"When you say  _half_ , what exactly do you mean, do you mean, like, half of the  _known_ paintings or half of all the paintings he's ever..." Kyungsoo trailed off. Yixing's jaw was uncharacteristically tight, even though he'd greeted them at the door with a glowing smile. 

"I don't even know how many I've painted," Kai said quietly, his lips pouting as he spoke. Kyungsoo's phone buzzed; it was his manager again. They thought he was on drugs since he hadn't responded to them in six hours. 

"You've painted nine hundred and seventy-two paintings since you started painting with Jinah," Yixing said, his voice soft and soothing. About forty-five of them have been sold or circulated, and I brought a few with me to China, but... listen, I don't know how it happened, but someone found out where I keep them. They just must have underestimated how much you've painted," he said, his mouth twitching upwards. 

Kai smiled ruefully. The foyer of Kai's apartment shone faintly in the morning light and Kyungsoo felt like he was slinking into the apartment for the first time. "I always thought it was Jinah," Kai murmured, running a hand through his hair. "I always blamed her for something in the back of my mind, but in the end the only thing she was guilty of was being too loyal."

 _"I just couldn't ever see past how much they loved him,"_ Jinah had spoken in a hushed whisper to Kyungsoo, relaying her incommunicable message to her husband through Kyungsoo. " _When we first met, they lay out this golden plan for him, where he could conquer the world with just a tailored suit and a private jet. That was how they loved him. But then I fell in love with him, too. I was his Mazikeen, I followed him out of heavan and built a new one for him. Kyungsoo, do you know how hard it is to accept that the only way you can love someone is to stay away from them? I couldn't do it; I tried to love him even more by loving him the way his parents did. But I never intended to cause him harm. Please, Kyungsoo, tell him I never intended to cause any harm."_ Kyungsoo knew that she still hoped her voice would change, could change for him. 

"What's going to happen now?" Kai asked, but Yixing just shook his head. 

"We'll see," he responded, "But since we have no idea who it is, and the paintings are clearly yours, they're bound to start showing up sooner or later. Listen, Kai. You have enough money to last your lifetime and your children's lifetimes. I'm not gonna lie, I'm getting recruited by about every art museum, collector, gallery and auctioneer in the world. And—look, it doesn't seem like painting has caused you a whole lot of joy." 

"What, so I should just stop?" Kai stared at Yixing with the cutest expression, his mouth hanging a little open and his eyebrows shoving up and together. "What would I do?" 

Yixing raised an eyebrow, looking from Kai to Kyungsoo. Then his phone rang, startling all three of them, and Yixing especially. "Isn't there anything you want to do?" Yixing asked, pulling out his phone. "It only yells at me like this if I really have to take it. But I believe you're going to be okay, Kai. You've never been as crazy as the world has tried to make you think."

Then he sidled out of the apartment, his voice floating through the door in thinner and thinner wisps until it closed and Kyungsoo and Kai were cloaked in a silence like they hadn't enjoyed since the last time they were in the apartment together. Kai looked around, his eyes hopping quickly from surface to surface. A healthy flush had returned to his cheeks and Kyungsoo knew from changing his bandages last night that all the hellish night would leave behind was an angry scar across Kai's stomach. He'd returned to his habitual graceful movements that drew Kyungsoo's eye to him wherever they were. 

Kai flowed into the living room, hands in his pockets, inspecting it as if for the first time. "I've been locked in this fucking place for too long," he said suddenly, turning on a dime to look back at Kyungsoo. 

Kyungsoo searched for something to say. "You don't like it?"

"You spend basically your whole life on the road, right? Isn't it more... I don't know... not rejuvenating but just  _juvenating_ , just, doesn't it give you _energy_?"

"Are we not going to talk about the collapse of your career as an artist at all?" Kyungsoo asked. "Is your wanderlust all I'm going to hear about?"

"Aww, babe, I'm just  _excited_ ," Kai replied, a small dimple appearing in the side of his cheek as he made his way swiftly back up to Kyungsoo, putting his hands on Kyungsoo's hips. "I've gone from the lonliest person in the whole world to the luckiest. I mean," he said, his voice dropping, "I get to sleep with a goddamn  _superstar._ " He nipped Kyungsoo's ear playfully, enveloping him in the scent of his shampoo and fresh laundry.

Kyungsoo could do nothing but grin, wrapping his hands around Kai's slender waist. "I know from expierence," he said, as Kai, distracted, began placing kisses behind his ear, "what  _excited_ Kai looks like." He dropped his voice when he said his boyfriend's name, and got an appreciative shiver in return, Kai's hands tightening on his hips. 

"C'mere," Kai muttered, backing towards his bedroom. "I have a suprise for you."

Inside the bedroom, Kyungsoo pulled away from Kai's attentions to stare at the painting above the bed. It wasn't as visually striking as the one Kai had painted of him, but still, Kyungsoo had never seen any artwork  _hanging_ in Kai's bedroom. It was a first-person point of view; the viewer was holding out their hands, connected to a faceless dancer, swirling in a mass of people. It was where they had gone dancing—Kai had painted it, he had hung it up,  _just for them_. 

"I never wanted to paint it," Kai said, wrapping his arms around Kyungsoo's waist from behind and resting his head on his shoulder, "Because it was just my place, and I could see it in my mind. So it's for you."

Kyungsoo took one more moment to drink it in, then whirled in Kai's arms, grinning, his eyes wide and adoring as he looked up at him. "It's beautiful," he said, "But I have you, the real thing, right here." He kissed Kai sweetly, their plush lips fusing comfortably, lingering there like they'd found where they belonged.

But Kai was, after all, excited, and soon his tongue was sliding across Kyungsoo's teeth and twisting with Kyungsoo's, his hand coming down to grip Kyungsoo's ass to bring the man closer to him. Kyungsoo could kiss Kai forever, because their lips melted together perfectly, because he loved the way he shivered when Kai nipped his bottom lip and because he loved being able to kiss and lick across Kai's perfect jaw. 

Giving Kai air wasn't a good idea; Kyungsoo found himself swept up bridal-style and plopped onto the bed, Kai immediately pushing his legs open and making love to his mouth again. They didn't kiss with urgency, but with utter pleasure, languidly moving their mouths and letting their stomachs twist and their cocks get hard and loving the utter, sexy security of the love involved in it all. 

It was entrancing, and Kyungsoo's breathing picked up just at how alien it all was; this was a different sort of sex, but he knew it made his skin hypersensitive to every place Kai touched him, made goosebumps erupt all over his body as Kai dragged his shirt over his head, and then took off his own. The morning light gave his tanned skin a glow that shimmered as he moved and a halo of light around his head. 

Soon, they were both naked, their cocks rubbing against each other with delicious friction, Kai giving breathy moans each time he grinded down. Smoothly, in sync with a thrust, a lubed finger slid smoothly inside Kyungsoo and he gave a tiny gasp that was swallowed by Kai's mouth, just eliciting a louder groan. " _fuck, babe,"_ Kai groaned practically into his mouth as Kyungsoo clenched around him. " _I love you so much."_   Soon there were two fingers, and then three, but Kai was careful to keep Kyungsoo's concentration on their lips and their cocks and, well, Kyungsoo was preoccupied with the godling above him.

He was in such a haze that he wasn't ready for Kai to slide smoothly into him, a lewd moan escaping his lips and his hands gripping the hair at the nape of Kai's neck. Kai, still, massaged his ass, his head falling into the crook of Kyungsoo's neck as a string of profanities fell from his mouth. Kyungsoo didn't have to speak to get Kai to move, they just began to move together, quickly finding the unique rythm of the most intimate of lovers, their hips meeting perfectly each time they rocked together, heat coiling deliciously in their stomachs. Kai found Kyungsoo's sweet spot almost immediatley and with each thrust he brushed against it, stimulating Kyungsoo more, and more subtly, than Kyungsoo could have imagined possible. For a long time they rocked together, locked in their own clouded world of moans and short breaths, building slowly and languidly, feeling everything.

It was one of the most beautiful things Kai had ever seen, because here, their bodies and their sensations reflected the colors that mingled in the air from their moans and the play of their lips.  _This is the beginning of addiction_ , he thought, and sucked a red mark on Kyungsoo's flawless shoulder, a wanton mewl of appreciation escaping the boy. Kai's toes curled into the bedsheets and he began to move a little faster, Kyungsoo matching him movement for movement, and together they reached their climax, clutching each other, Kai pumping Kyungsoo's cock and Kyungsoo clenching around Kai, their harsh breathing the only sound.

"Holy—" Kyungsoo took a ragged breath, "— _shit._  Was it just me or was that—"

" _Amazing,_ " Kai breathed, lying half on top of Kyungsoo. 

* * *

"The painting was donated anonymously and, because no one associated with the painter has stepped forward to claim any foul play, we may never know who the true artist is, or why he painted it. Reporter Andi Wu has more."

Kai blinked a few times, the royal blue of the TV filtering into the room in a low buzz. The blankets were twisted around him, the bed warm from his body heat, but he was sure he'd only taken a nap. That meant it was sometime in the afternoon. He wondered if Kyungsoo had left for work, and then couldn't help smiling to himself at how domestic the thought was.

It was chilly when he got up despite the sunlight streaming in through the windows, so he dressed quickly, padding out to the bright living room to try and figure out why Kyungsoo had left the TV on.

Blown up on his television was the Kyungsoo painting, the one that had been stolen from him, the one he remembered, flinching, trying to destroy in his parents' home. His first instinct was that his parents had done it, but no; they would have sold it. Someone had donated it to the national museam of art. He was sure it wasn't his parents.

"What do you want to do?" Kai jumped, suprised, whirling to look at Kyungsoo lounging behind the kitchen counter. 

"You're home," Kai replied, blinking, ruffling his hear behind his head. "I thought you would've..." he made a vague hand gesture.

"I do have to go, actually." Kyungsoo replied, his voice echoing off the wall in smooth, velvety planes. "But I wanted to make you breakfast. Knowing you it would have been cold pizza this morning. Anyway, that's our painting." he gestured to the television. 

Kai shrugged and hopped into the seat across from Kyungsoo at the island, watching as Kyungsoo moved comfortably around the kitchen. "I think it's in a good place. We can always go back to it if it's there. It'll be safe. No one can make money off it, no one can steal it. People can look at your face all day long." 

Kyungsoo's laugh tinkled around the room and its color and shape made Kai grin. "Don't you want credit? It's your masterpiece, after all. One of the last things ever painted by those beautiful fingers." He reached up on his tiptoes to grab a bowl, his sweater hanging a little off his shoulder. Kai caught a purpely, circular bruise there and smiled to himself.  _Let the makeup artists try to cover that up._  

"I think I like anonymity," Kai answered, watching with facinated eyes as Kyungsoo brought together various ingriedients and whipped them quickly, then soaking bread in whatever substance he'd concocted. "What are you making?"

"French toast," Kyungsoo replied, a smiling bit of light blue floating through his voice. "But I don't know if I'll have time to eat with you." 

Kyungsoo began to hum as he worked, basking in Kai's gaze as the boy watched him. The continued like that for a few minutes, Kyungsoo cooking and humming and Kai just watching until Kyungsoo's humming cut short. Kai blinked a few times, the thick haze of purple clearing a little, and looked at Kyungsoo in puzzlement. "What's up?"

"I just—" Kyungsoo chuckled to himself.

"What?" Kai wanted in on whatever was funny.

"I was worrying about this thing, and I just realized how stupid it was," Kyungsoo replied. "I mean, Baekhyun is a genius sometimes, but sometimes he just blows things totally out of proportion."

"What the hell are you talking about, babe? And what does Baekhyun have to do with it?"

"Singing is part of me. There might be plenty of problems with fame—especially for you, you little shit, don't you dare try it—but it's  _totally_ fucking entangled with who I am. It  _makes_ me who I am. I'm not any less  _Kyungsoo_ because I sing someone else's song, or because I'm tired. It's still my voice. I'm still the one standing in front of them."

"Were you confused about this?" Kai drew his eyebrows together. Kyungsoo shot him a look. "It's because I didn't have you around, stupid. I was driving myself crazy."

"Well, I could have told you that." Kai pouted. "Of course your voice is part of you. I'd say it's my favorite, but—" he licked his lips, smiling. "There are so  _many_ parts of you to love."

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes and his laugh sounded through the apartment again. "I really gotta go, I don't even know what I'm still doing here," he replied.

In fact, he did have to go; Kyungsoo was out the door as quicky as possible, once he was sure Kai was eating happily. He grabbed a muffin and brushed his lips to Kai's temple briefly. "Love you," he whispered into Kai's ear before grabbing his bag and closing the door gently. 

Kai ate as quickly as he could allow himself to, what with it being Kyungsoo's hand that had made it. Then, with his phone in one pocket and his wallet in the other, he ventured outside, his heart thudding in excitement instead of overstimulation, the world lit in vibrant, beautiful color.

* * *

"Kai!" Chanyeol's smile was unbelievable, lighting his entire face, making his voice a satisfying, sparkling orange-red. "You made it! I was honestly wondering if you were drunk-texting me or something. I can't believe you painted that painting of Kyungsoo! It's fantastic! Are you heading there after this to go claim authorship?"

Kai shook his head, smiling as Chanyeol ushered him inside his cozy studio. "I'm going to stay anonymous, and I'd appreciate your discresion," he said. "Do you think you can do it?"

"Of course! It's actually a lot like the ones the singers themselves wear, so it wasn't that hard to tinker with. Really, you're not telling anyone it was you?"

"It would undermine a lot of things I want to do with the rest of my life," Kai replied. "Does it need batteries, or do I need to turn it on, or anything?" He took the earphones and small black box attatched carefully, like they were made of glass. 

"You can clip that box thingie somewhere, or put it in your pocket," Chanyeol replied. "That read switch—yes, that one there—that turns it on, and that's all there is to it! It'll need its battery changed in a few months, but that's just my way of making sure I'll see you again." He grinned. 

Kai thanked him and practically skipped out the doorway, making the spur-of-the-moment decision to swing by the museam, just to see that painting one more time. The line was incredibly long, but the donor's ID that Yixing had given him over a year ago seemed to work some sort of magic and he got to skip the whole thing. 

The colors of the sounds inside the museam were all subdued and seemed to focus his attention on the artwork. He didn't make it a habit to look at other artwork, but now he took his time, strolling from room to room and creating stories for each painting in his mind. 

Finally he came to his painting. It had its own room, with two of his other paintings flanking it on either wall and a bench in the middle. Sitting on the bench was a thin figure, reclining on his hands, head tilted up to look at the painting, jawline sharp as ever.

It all clicked; it all made sense all of a sudden, and Kai grinned, folding his arms and watching the figure stare at what he'd painted. Sehun wore a supremely satisfied expression, as if he'd repented for some sin and God had forgiven him, and His forgiveness was embodied in this painting. 

Sehun had broken in the first time. Sehun had broken in while he'd been at Jinah's. Sehun had stolen the paintings the third time, too. Sehun had rescued his paintings from his parents and Sehun had, in the end, decided to donate them somewhere they belonged, where he couldn't take advantage of them.

All the times Sehun had asked for money before flashed across Kai's mind, all the times he'd opened the door to leave and thrown a longing, wistful expression over his shoulder.  _I think I might have a job offer. So I could stop relying on you like you're my sugar daddy or something..._

_Who manages your stuff?_

But the look on Sehun's face was so serene. The earth had woken up and embraced him with bright blue skies and he had drunk from its well of peace with gratitude.  _My parents don't have a thing on us,_ Kai thought as the murmurs of museam-goers swirled around him in a quiet rainbow.  _They couldn't touch that kind of happiness._

 _"_ Kai?" Kai turned at the slice of yellow coming from behind him, putting a quick finger to his lips.

"What are you doing here? You should have told me, I've been looking for you all day, and you won't answer your phone." Yixing pouted. "Are you gonna tell them it was you? Because if you aren't, and you're done painting, there's this really great offer..." Yixing's arm wrapped around Kai's shoulders and he began to lead Kai out of the room, but not before Kai looked over his shoulder to see that Sehun had spotted him and was staring at him with wide eyes.

Kai gave him the slightest of nods, and a wink, and then let himself be swept away by Yixing, the image of Sehun's wondering face lingering in his mind.

That night, Kyungsoo spotted an angel in the crowd during his concert. He had tanned skin and shining eyes and something glittered in his ears. Somehow, an apparition or incarnation of Kai stood in the front row, and cheered when the audience cheered, and danced with the crowd, and closed his eyes listlessly during the ballads, just before Kyungsoo closed his own to go for a sweet, lilac high note.

* * *

No one ever did discover who painted that masterpiece, which came to be known in art circles as  _The Lilac Muse_ , Kai's final masterpiece. Instead, a different circle began to notice a tall, tan and hansome man becoming a regular at nearly all of Kyungsoo's concerts. He was somewhere between crew and a fanboy; sometimes he was spotted backstage, sometimes front row. Sometimes the young girls' phones caught Kyungsoo blowing kisses at him at the end of a song. Once, they caught a glimpse into why, during one of Kyungsoo's ments.

"Some people—" he waited for the screams to die down. "Some people like to tell us what happiness is, or how to be happy. But listen to me when I say—" Kyungsoo's voice echoed across the sea of lightsticks— "Listen to me when I say that that is _their_ problem! Each of us has an individual prerogative to find whatever or _whomever_ makes us happy. Once it finds your heart, it cannot be touched, not with fire, or steel, or manipulation. Thank you so much for coming! Singing for you makes my soul sing more prettily than I ever could!"

The lights went out and the screaming resumed, and a figure could be seen dimly jumping onstage and scurrying off with Kyungsoo, their hands linked as they disappeared behind the curtain.

* * *

Author's Note: EVERYONE! It's over! I don't know whether to be happy or sad... I still come back to this fic because it was the first one I really developed and cared about, and I hope you felt that while you read it. 

Please look forward to future stories! Let me know if you want spinoffs, or other pairings, or ANYTHING! Comments are my favorite! commentcommentcomment and let me share in what you feel!

Thanks for reading,

Seahorse

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: In the begining, Kyungsoo sings You're My Best Friend by Once.


End file.
